For the second consecutive year, Visakhapatnam has emerged as the fourth cleanest city in India in the Swachh Survekshan 2023 rankings announced in New Delhi on Thursday.
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Union Minister of Housing & Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri gave the award to Andhra Pradesh Municipal Minister Audimulapu Suresh, Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) Mayor G. Hari Venkata Kumari and GVMC Commissioner C.M. Saikanth Varma in an event held at the Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi. Chief Engineer Ravikrishna Raju, Additional Commissioner V. Sanyasi Rao and Chief Medical Officier (Health) Naresh Kumar were also present.
Indore and Surat were announced as the cleanest cities in the country, followed by Navi Mumbai, which stood in third position, as per the rankings. Vizag is the only city from Andhra Pradesh to find a spot on the top five list. This is the third time that Vizag has secured a spot among the top five cleanest cities. So far, the city’s best was the third rank it secured during the year 2016-17 and lowest rank was 23 during the year 2019. In 2020 and 2021, it bagged the 9th rank.
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On the occasion, the GVMC officials thanked the citizens of Visakhapatnam, its employees, resident welfare associations, NGO and sanitation staff for their support.
According to a senior official, cleanliness drives at various public places and beaches, the fight against single-use plastic, and awareness campaigns on ‘Swachhtha’, a number of activities taken up as part of Swachh Survekshan’ in the last two years, have yielded the result.
Meanwhile, Indore secured its cleanest city tag consecutively for the seventh time in a row, while Surat stood as joint winner. Navi Mumbai stood in third position, as per the SS 2023 rankings.
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The SS rankings were given based on a total of 9,500 marks under three categories—Service Level Progress (4,830), Certification (2,500) and Citizen Feedback (2,170). As per the results released, Visakhapatnam has secured 8,879.25 marks including 4,529.13 in SLP, 2300 and in Certification and 2,050.12 in Citizen Feedback categories.
Navi Mumbai, which scored third rank, has secured 9,240.27 marks, while Indore and Surat secured 9,348 marks. A total of 4,000 cities were surveyed in the world’s biggest Urban Local Bodies (ULB) cleanliness survey this year.
Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Saikanth Varma said that the great support came from the citizens and sanitation workers have shown complete commitment, which resulted in the ranking. He also thanked the officers, corporators and the Mayor for their support.