The New Delhi area administered by the NDMC was adjudged the “cleanest small city” in the category of cities with one to three lakh inhabitants in the Swachh Survekshan 2022 rankings released on Saturday.

Meanwhile, South MCD received 28th rank in  Swachh Survekshan 2022 and improved by three points from last year's ranking of 31st. Similarly, East MCD also improved its ranking by 6 points to 34th ranking from the previous year rank of 40.Swachh Sarvekshan is the Centre's yearly survey on cleanliness under the Swachh Bharat Mission. Last year too, the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) was awarded the cleanest small city in the same population category.

President Droupadi Murmu on Saturday gave away the awards to the winners at an event here also attended by Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and others.

In the Swachh Survekshan 2022, Delhi Cantonment Board was ranked fifth in the cantonment boards' category across the country.

It was ranked third in the Swachh Survekshan 2021. According to an NDMC statement, the civic body was also awarded with the five-star garbage-free city ranking and water plus certified city.

“NDMC has been awarded clean small city in the population category of 1-3 lakh in the Swachh Survekshan 2022, along with a 5-star garbage-free city ranking and water plus certified city,” a NDMC statement said.

The award was received by NDMC chairperson Bhupinder S Bhalla and secretary Vikram Singh Malik.

Bhalla said the credit for getting the award and ranking goes to the hard work of all NDMC employees particularly the health department. “The award is a recognition of NDMC's continued efforts to establish excellence in service standards and provide world-class civic amenities to its residents,” the statement said.

According to a statement issued by MCD, despite severe financial crunch and limited resources ,all erstwhile MCDs have secured better ranking  than last year's survey and tried their best in the survekshan.

“All the three corporations have performed impeccably in door to door waste collection, cleanliness of market areas,residential areas,water bodies,  and non availability of open garbage dumps,” statement read.

“Erstwhile corporations had taken various new  Swacchh initiatives to improve the ranking. Swacch Initiatives like   setting up of decentralized compost plant, special drives for ensuring and maintaining ODF++ status , remediation of landfill sites, installation of twin dustbin to promote segregation of the waste, setting up of Gargabe Café,Bartan Bank,Thaila Bank,Eco Hub etc,” it said.

“Now after unification of MCD, special emphasis will be given to improve the following parameters: Cleanliness of public toilets,Cititzen grievance redressal,cleanliness of roads ,cleanliness of drains,certification parameters,Door to door segregation of municipal waste. It will also be putting special emphasis on augmenting its waste processing capacity as well as rate of processing waste,” it added.

The 7th edition of Swachh Survekshan was conducted to study the progress of the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) and rank the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) based on various cleanliness and sanitation parameters.