New Delhi, Nov 12: President of India Smt. Droupadi Murmu on Wednesday conferred the Swachh Survekshan Awards 2025–26 at a ceremony held at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi, recognising the efforts of urban local bodies across the country in improving sanitation, waste management and urban cleanliness.
Williamnagar in Meghalaya has been recognised as the State First Swachh City under the 2025–26 assessment. The recognition is part of the State First Swachh City category, under which 30 cities across States and Union Territories have been acknowledged for their performance in urban sanitation and cleanliness.
The 10th edition of Swachh Survekshan, conducted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs under the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U), covered 4,751 cities across the country.
The assessment was undertaken against 43 indicators across 10 key areas, including waste segregation, collection and transportation, solid waste management, visible cleanliness, access to sanitation, used water management, citizen feedback and the welfare of sanitation workers.
More than 3,000 trained assessors undertook on-ground evaluations supported by real-time GPS-enabled monitoring. The assessment process, from evidence submission to verification, was conducted digitally with quality checks to ensure transparency and consistency.
The results reflected improvements across urban India, with more than 1,700 urban local bodies having populations below 50,000 improving their rankings compared to the previous edition. More than 350 urban local bodies also improved their positions by over 500 ranks.
This edition also introduced new award categories for Swachh River Front Towns, Swachh Coastal Towns and Clean Himalayan Cities, expanding the assessment to recognise the distinct sanitation and environmental challenges faced by different geographical regions.
Under the Clean Himalayan City category, Rudrapur in Uttarakhand, Jammu and Shopian in Jammu and Kashmir were recognised among the top three cities. Rewa in Madhya Pradesh, Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh secured recognition among the leading Swachh River Front Towns, while Puri in Odisha, Alappuzha in Kerala and Ratnagiri in Maharashtra were recognised among the top Swachh Coastal Towns.
Addressing the award ceremony, President Smt. Droupadi Murmu emphasised that cleanliness requires the active participation of all stakeholders and cannot be achieved through the efforts of any single institution. She underscored the importance of citizen participation, behavioural change, administrative accountability and sustained public engagement.
Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Shri Manohar Lal highlighted the progress made under the Swachh Bharat Mission since 2014, stating that urban waste processing had increased from 16 per cent to 80 per cent, while door-to-door waste collection coverage had risen from 44 per cent to over 96 per cent.
He also highlighted the Swachh Shehar Jodi initiative, under which 70 mentor cities have been paired with 191 mentee cities to facilitate knowledge-sharing and improve urban sanitation outcomes. Ahmedabad-Sanand, Indore-Depalpur and Tirupati-Kuppam emerged as the top three performing city pairs under the initiative.
The Swachh Survekshan Awards 2025–26 mark a decade of the nationwide cleanliness assessment, which has expanded from 73 urban local bodies in 2016 to 4,751 cities in its latest edition. The awards seek to recognise improvements in urban sanitation while reinforcing the role of citizens, local administrations and sanitation workers in sustaining cleaner and healthier urban environments.
