Swachh Survekshan 2024–25 Awards, Key Performance Highlights and Significance

Context: Recently, the President of India awarded the Swachh Survekshan 2024–25 Awards on July 17, 2025. This marked the 9th edition of the world’s largest urban cleanliness survey.

Swachh Survekshan 2024–25 Awards

• Indore (Madhya Pradesh) was the cleanest city for the eighth year running in the Super Swachh League for cities with over 10 lakh population.
  • Surat (Gujarat) ranked second, and Navi Mumbai (Maharashtra) was third in the same category.
• In the Swachh Shehar (Million+ category) rankings:
  • 1st: Ahmedabad (Gujarat)
  • 2nd: Bhopal (MP)
  • 3rd: Lucknow (UP)
• New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) was declared a “Super Swachh League City” in the 50,000–3 lakh population category for exemplary sanitation work.

Other Recognitions

• Noida (3–10 lakh category) was adjudged a Super Swachh League leader.
• Rising clean cities like Dewas, Tirupati, Jamshedpur, Dewas, and Panaji secured first places in their respective size categories.

Special & State-Level Awards

• Special awards included:
  • Prayagraj received cleanliness award at Maha Kumbh 2025 and Cleanest Ganga Town title
  • Secunderabad Cantonment was conferred the Best Cantonment Board award
  • Safaimitra Surakshit Shehar awards for safe sanitation workers and dignity of sanitation workers were given to Visakhapatnam, Jabalpur, and Gorakhpur
• Promising Swachh Shehar Awards were given to 34 exceptional clean cities in states and UTs on the “One State, One Award” concept

More Performance Highlights

• Hyderabad (Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation) attained its all-time best rank: 6th in the country; also ranked as Telangana’s cleanest city with potential.
• Karnal (Haryana) ranked 3rd in the 50,000–3 lakh population range and attained “Water Plus” status.
• Panchkula and Derabassi recorded local controversy—Panchkula’s squeaky-clean scores belied ground-level sanitation levels, whereas Derabassi scored better than Mohali in many waste management parameters.

Super Swachh League (SSL)

• Super Swachh League is a special recognition category under the Swachh Survekshan Awards, introduced by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA).
• To honour top-performing cities that have shown consistent excellence in urban cleanliness and sanitation.

About Swachh Survekshan Award

Swachh Survekshan Award is a part of India’s Swachh Bharat Mission, aimed at encouraging cities and towns to improve urban sanitation and cleanliness through healthy competition.  Swachh Survekshan 2024–25 was the 9th round of India’s national urban sanitation survey under the Swachh Bharat Mission – Urban (SBM-U). Assessed more than 4,500 Urban Local Bodies, with 14.6 million citizen responses and 2.2 million on-site surveys. The 2025 theme focused on “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (3R)” as per the Jaipur Declaration on circular economy

Incorporated new frameworks:

• Super Swachh League distinct category for consistent top-performers such as Indore
• City categories by population (~5 size bins), to facilitate reasonable benchmarking

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