President Ram Nath Kovind on Saturday announced the 'Swachh Survekshan 2021' awards in which Chhattisgarh got the award for being the cleanest state in the country.
Apart from this, Indore in Madhya Pradesh was declared the cleanest city in the country for the fifth consecutive time. Chhattisgarh has been given the cleanest state award in the annual cleanliness survey, while Uttar Pradesh's Varanasi has won the cleanest Ganga city in the Swachh Survekshan 2021 awards.
Surat city of Gujarat was ranked second in the list of cleanest cities last year and this year also Surat has retained its position. Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh's Vijayawada has secured the third position on the list. In the year 2020, Navi Mumbai in Maharashtra was ranked as the third cleanest city in India.
A total of 4,320 cities participated in the 2021 edition of Swachh Survekshan. Cities are usually rated using the star system and this year, 342 cities were given certificates under certain star ratings, compared to 56 in 2018.
This includes nine five star cities, 166 three-star cities, 167 one-star cities. This is the sixth edition of the Swachh Survekshan which has become the world's largest urban sanitation survey, the ministry said.
Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri congratulated Indore and its people, political leadership and municipal corporation on Twitter.
On this occasion, President Kovind said that Mahatma Gandhi had said that cleanliness should be the top priority and keeping in mind this priority of Gandhiji, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took forward the Swachh Bharat Mission as a mass movement.
He said that he has been told that 35 states and union territories and urban areas have become open defecation free. Kovind said that the biggest success of the Swachh Bharat Mission is the change in the thinking of the country where now even small children of the house stop and interrupt the elders from spreading dirt.
President Ram Nath Kovind said that manual scavenging by human beings is a shameful practice and it is not only the government's responsibility to stop it but the society and all the citizens of the country. He suggested that machine cleaning facilities should be made available in all cities. The President also talked about adopting good practices of cleanliness award-winning cities.