Indore bagged the title of India’s cleanest city for the sixth time in a row as the results of the Central government’s annual cleanliness survey ‘Swachh Survekshan Awards 2022’ were announced on Saturday.
The smart city has time and again won awards and accolades for its sustainable development, urban planning, and cleanliness. Active involvement, smart planning and incentives from the municipal body, along with citizens who were receptive and actively involved, has led to Indore’s success as a clean and smart city setting an example for several others.
Indore processes 1,900 tons of urban waste every day, as per Outlook, from which it earns crores of rupees and also fuels its buses. The city’s bio-CNG plant runs on the wet waste collected from the city, and provides the fuel.
Municipal bodies, NGOs, private companies and citizens all came together to achieve this goal. Since 2016, Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) has eliminated garbage dumps, ensured 100% household-waste segregation and converted waste into usable products, such as compost and fuel.
It partnered with NGOs for an awareness campaign aimed at its citizens, contracted private companies to run waste management operations, used technology, and improved municipal capacity to ensure the implementation of its waste management plan, a report by IndiaSpend says.
“Due to political and administrative will, the city has become the cleanest in the country,” Swati Singh Sambyal, programme manager for waste management at the Center for Science and Environment (CSE), a Delhi-based nonprofit told IndiaSpend. “The city has definitely resolved about 90% of its solid waste challenge.”
As per an Indian Express report, the city’s Municipal Corporation’s cleanliness campaign took the first step in 2017, with hundreds of municipal vehicles collecting garbage from households across the city, which was sent to the transportation hub, and from there to the trenching ground. Waste was collected once a day from residential areas, and twice from commercial areas. Safai workers cleaned the streets at night. The Municipal Corporation has its theme song sung by singer Shaan which is called “Swachhta aadat hai, swachhta utsav hai”.
The city’s then-Mayor Malini Gaud held several meetings with citizens and administered the oath of cleanliness to more than four lakh people in 2017 alone, as per Financial Express. The municipal body also cracked down on fining residents for littering, spitting and urinating in the open.
The IMC had also, in 2018, distributed 1,000 free dustbins to vehicle owners to encourage them to not throw waste out of windows. The bottle shaped dustbins each fit into car bottle-holders, the Financial Express had reported.
SMART CITY, BEST CITY
Indore is not only the country’s cleanest city, but also its smartest city. In an All India Smart City ranking, issued by the central government in June 2022, it was adjudged at the first position, securing 89.24 percent, as per Times of India.
In April 2022, the Indore Smart City Development Limited (ISCDL) received six awards in the Smart City Conference which was organised in Surat. It jointly won the best city award, with Surat for their overall performances across categories like social aspects, culture, sanity, urban environment, water and urban mobility, as part of initiatives implemented in the 100 Smart Cities.
Union Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri felicitated the municipal commissioner and Executive Director of Indore Smart City Development Limited Pratibha Pal and senior IMC officials received felicitations.
The city won awards in six categories: It won first place in all categories (overall). It also won the first prize for Chappan Dukan in the built environment category. The Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) was awarded the first prize for sanitation and municipal waste management.
Additionally, the city won an award in the ‘Culture Heritage Conversion Project’ category for Rajwada Palace, Gopal Mandir Complex, Chhatri (Malhar Rao Holkar Chhatri, Hari Rao Holkar Chhatri and Bolia Sarkar Chhatri). It also won the first prize in Economic Carbon Credit Financial Mechanism and the Innovative Idea Award for Carbon Credit Financing Mechanism, as per Free Press Journal.
INDORE’S PREVIOUS ACCOLADES
The city, which has now won the cleanest city award six times, has had several other glittering laurels over the years. At the Smart City awards in 2021, Indore swept up seven of 20 awards, and was judged the best smart city along with Surat.
The city also witnessed a new world record for making a geographical map of India through a human chain during the Independence day celebrations in 2022. The event reportedly got registered in the World Book of Record as it observed the largest human chain forming the country’s map to commemorate Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav. It also won the National Tourism Award 2018-19, for ‘civic management of a tourist destination in India’, as per Times of India.
Another significant achievement was when the city’s sustainable development project earned the praise of business tycoon Anand Mahindra in 2021. In a tweet, Mahindra had shared a news article that said that Indore was India’s first ‘water plus’ city, as per a report by Mint.
The Indore Municipal Corporation tapped 1,746 public and 5,624 domestic sewer outfalls in 25 small and big nullahs which freed the city’s Kanh and Saraswati rivers from sewer lines. Indore civic commissioner Pratibha Pal informed that seven sewerage treatment plants were constructed in the city and about 110 million litres per day (MLD) treated water from them is being used.
Source: 'Swachh', Smart, Sustainable: Scoring A+ for 6th Time, Here's the Success Story of India's Topper — Indore (msn.com)