Navi Mumbai has been named the cleanest city in India in the Centre's annual cleanliness survey, with Surat and Vijayawada taking second and third place.
President Droupadi Murmu handed out the awards for Swachh Survekshan 2025-26 at a ceremony in New Delhi on Wednesday. Over 4,700 urban local bodies across the country took part in this year's survey.
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For the first time in nine years, Indore did not top the main list. The city, which had held the title for eight straight years, now competes in a separate Mentor City category under the new ‘Swachh Shehar Jodi' initiative, which pairs high-performing cities with smaller partner towns.
Indore and its partner town Depalpur finished second in this category. Ahmedabad and Sanand took the top spot, and Tirupati and Kuppam came third.
Winners By Population
Greater Visakhapatnam was ranked first among cities with more than 10 lakh people, with Jabalpur second and Lucknow third.
Ujjain led the 3-10 lakh category, ahead of Chandigarh and Guntur. In the 50,000-3 lakh group, Dewas came first, the New Delhi Municipal Council second and Sagar third. Maharashtra's Vita topped the list of towns with 20,000-50,000 people, with Odisha's Aska and Goa's Panaji as runners-up.
Riverfront, Coastal And Himalayan Towns
Rewa in Madhya Pradesh took the top honour among riverfront towns, with Bilaspur and Varanasi next. Among coastal towns, Puri ranked first, followed by Alappuzha and Ratnagiri.
In the Himalayan category, Uttarakhand's Rudrapur came out on top, with Jammu and Shopian close behind.
How Cities Were Judged
According to the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry, over 3,000 trained assessors checked cities on the ground, with GPS-based monitoring in real time. The whole process was carried out digitally, the ministry said.
It added that cities being mentored under the new scheme had shown clear gains in a year. Their visible cleanliness score climbed from 48 percent to 70 percent, while access to sanitation rose from 11 percent to 38 percent.
Navi Mumbai Thanks Residents
The Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation credited the win to residents, sanitation workers and civic staff. Their post on X stated: “This honour belongs to every Navi Mumbaikar. Together, we have made Navi Mumbai a national benchmark for cleanliness.”
(With PTI inputs.)
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