President Droupadi Murmu will confer the Swachh Survekshan Awards 2025-26 at a ceremony at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi on November 11, recognising the country’s cleanest cities and their contributions to the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U).
The 10th edition of the annual cleanliness assessment, organised under the Department of Urban Development of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), was conducted under the theme ‘Swachhata Ki Nayi Pehel – Badhayein Haath, Karein Safai Saath’.
Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Manohar Lal and Minister of State Tokhan Sahu will also attend the award ceremony.
The 2025-26 awards mark a decade of the nationwide cleanliness assessment and recognise the collective efforts of cities and states while reinforcing the commitment to sustaining improvements in urban sanitation and waste management.
Launched in 2016 with 73 urban local bodies (ULBs), Swachh Survekshan has expanded significantly, covering more than 4,751 cities in its latest edition.
This year’s assessment introduces several enhancements, including greater emphasis on citizen feedback, expanded coverage of urban riverfronts, coastlines and water bodies, and specific indicators for preventing open defecation and urination. It also places greater focus on cleanliness at tourist and heritage sites and behaviour-change initiatives in schools.
Under the 10th edition, ULBs were assessed against 43 indicators across 10 key areas, including waste segregation, collection and transportation, solid waste management, visible cleanliness, access to sanitation, mechanised desludging services, institutional strengthening, used water management, sanitation awareness, the welfare of sanitation workers, and citizen feedback and grievance redressal.
More than 3,000 trained assessors conducted extensive field evaluations across the country, supported by real-time GPS-enabled monitoring. The assessment process, from evidence submission to verification, was carried out digitally, with transparency measures and quality checks at every stage.
The awards will also recognise leading performers under the ‘Swachh Shehar Jodi’ initiative, a mentorship and peer-learning programme involving 70 mentor cities and 191 mentee cities across 33 states and Union Territories.
Launched by Manohar Lal on September 27, 2025, the initiative aims to improve urban waste management through collaboration and the sharing of best practices. Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) were signed between the participating mentor and mentee cities at its launch.
According to the assessment data, mentee cities have recorded improvements across several cleanliness indicators between Swachh Survekshan 2024 and the latest edition.
The proportion of mentee cities performing well on visible cleanliness indicators increased from 48 per cent in 2024 to 70 per cent in the latest assessment. Door-to-door waste collection improved from 52 per cent to 74 per cent.
Improvements were also recorded in source segregation, which rose from 16 per cent to 30 per cent, access to sanitation from 11 per cent to 38 per cent, used water management from 32 per cent to 53 per cent, and advocacy for cleanliness from 48 per cent to 66 per cent.
The results reflect improvements in sanitation infrastructure, waste management practices and service delivery through mentorship and collaboration among cities.
The winners of the Swachh Survekshan 2025-26 awards will be announced at the November 11 ceremony, marking the conclusion of the 10th edition of the nationwide cleanliness assessment.
-PIB
