Vizag rises to 9th position in Swachh Survekshan Awards 2020

Visakhapatnam has been in the forefront for consistently maintaining the cleanliness of the city. In good news to the city, Vizag has ranked #9 in the Swachh Survekshan Awards 2020 granted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs this year. This is a big progress, considering the previous ranking was #23 for Vizag. The good news was shared by MP Vijaysai Reddy on his official Twitter handle. While noting that the progress is appreciable, the MP also congratulated the GVMC authorities for their hard work.

Vijayawada from Andhra Pradesh stood at the fourth position this year. The first three were bagged by Indore, Surat and Navi Mumbai respectively. Earlier this year in January, Vizag stood #1 in the country in the category of citizen feedback. Every year, the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs releases a list of the cleanest cities in India after undertaking a comprehensive four-step survey. One part of the survey is to gather the citizens’ feedback on their local municipality’s work through the year. The GVMC therefore amped up its game ahead of the survey by inviting citizens to vote for their city online or via SMS.

Further, the GVMC also conducted intensive sanitation drives, anti-larval operations, door-to-door collection and segregation of waste across Visakhapatnam regularly. The GVMC Commissioner ordered the officials in Vizag to provide community and public toilets, in slums, parks and markets among others to obtain the double plus ranking in the ODF category under Swachh Survekshan 2020.

The Swachh Survekshan Survey 2020 is implemented under the central government’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Urban) scheme. It is the government’s initiative to ensure that local municipality officials ensure safe and clean spaces for their citizens.

In 2017, Visakhapatnam stood 3rd in India under the ‘cleanest city’ category. In 2018, the city was at the 7th position, and in 2019, on the 23rd position. This year, Vizag revived its position to the 9th in the Swachh Survekshan Awards 2020.

Swachh Mahostav – Award Ceremony of the Swachh Survekshan 2020 held through Vitual / Web conference on 20 August 2020 by the Ministry of the Housing and Urban Affairs, GOI resided by the Honourable Prime Minister of India and Honourable Minister of MoHUA :::: Vijayawada achieved award for India’s Largest clean city(10 to 40 Lakh population), Tirupati achieved award for Best Sustainable Small city(1 to 3 Lakh population), Chirala achieved award for Best Sustainable Small city (50,000 to 1 Lakh population), Atmakur (Nellore) achieved for Best Sustainable Small city (25,000 to 50,000 population), Palamaneru achieved award for South Zone Cleanest city (50,000 to 1 Lakh population) category and Mumidivaram achieved award for Smallest Fast moving city (below 25,000 population).