Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Friday launched the “Swachchh Survekshan 2021” — the sixth edition of the annual cleanliness survey —and said the exercise this year will focus on wastewater treatment and other parameters. At the event, Puri said that every year, the “Swachchh Survekshan” is redesigned innovatively to ensure the process becomes more robust with focus on sustaining the behaviour change.
“Like in the last year, keeping in mind the ministry’s efforts towards ensuring sustainability of the sanitation value chain, the SS 2021 indicators focus on parameters pertaining to wastewater treatment and reuse along with faecal sludge,” he said.
The Minister also announced a new category of awards titled “Prerak Daaur Samman” as part of “Swachchh Survekshan 2021”. The Prerak Daaur Samman has five additional sub — categories —Divya (Platinum), Anupam (Gold), Ujjwal (Silver), Udit (Bronze), Aarohi (Aspiring) — with top three cities being recognised in each. According to the Ministry, state ranking will also be announced under the survey, to be measured based on their fund utilisation and support to respective local bodies, among others.
The Ministry said “Swachchh Survekshan 2020” had seen an unprecedented participation of 1.87 crore citizens. The survey will categorise cities on the basis of six indicator-wise performance criteria — segregation of waste into wet, dry and hazard categories; processing capacity against wet waste generated; processing and recycling of wet and dry waste; construction & demolition (C&D) waste processing; percentage of waste going to landfills; and sanitation status of cities.