By Shishir Prashant 
PrashantNews
Rudrapur in Uttarakhand has emerged as one of India’s three cleanest Himalayan cities in the Swachh Survekshan Awards 2025-26, securing a place among the top three in a newly introduced category recognising cleanliness efforts in Himalayan towns.
Jammu and Shopian in Jammu and Kashmir secured the other two positions in the Clean Himalayan City category.
President Droupadi Murmu presented the Swachh Survekshan Awards at a ceremony held at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi on Tuesday. Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Manohar Lal and Minister of State Tokhan Sahu were also present.
This year’s survey introduced special categories for Himalayan cities, riverfront towns and coastal towns for the first time, recognising the distinct environmental and sanitation challenges faced by these areas.
In other categories, Navi Mumbai, Surat and Vijayawada emerged as the top three cities in the Super Swachh League, while Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC), Jabalpur and Lucknow secured the top three positions among cities with populations exceeding one million.
Rewa in Madhya Pradesh, Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh were recognised as the top three clean riverfront towns. In the coastal town category, Puri in Odisha, Alappuzha in Kerala and Ratnagiri in Maharashtra secured the top positions.
The awards also recognised partnerships between cities under the Swachh Shehar Jodi initiative. Ahmedabad-Sanand, Indore-Depalpur and Tirupati-Kuppam emerged as the top three city pairs. Under this initiative, better-performing cities mentor other urban local bodies to improve their sanitation and waste management systems.
According to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, more than 350 urban local bodies improved their rankings by over 500 positions this year, while more than 1,700 smaller cities with populations below 50,000 improved their rankings compared with the previous survey.
The 10th edition of the annual cleanliness survey covered 4,751 cities, with around 2.70 crore citizens participating in the feedback process.
Addressing the ceremony, President Murmu emphasised that cleanliness required the collective participation of citizens, local administrations and sanitation workers. She stressed the importance of behavioural change, administrative accountability and sustained public engagement.
Union Minister Manohar Lal said urban waste processing had increased from 16 per cent in 2014 to 80 per cent, while door-to-door waste collection coverage had risen from 44 per cent to over 96 per cent. He also said remediation of legacy waste dumpsites had freed nearly 11,000 acres of urban land for productive use.
The cities were assessed on 43 indicators across 10 domains, including waste segregation, collection and transportation, solid waste management, visible cleanliness, sanitation facilities, wastewater management, sanitation workers’ welfare and citizen feedback. More than 3,000 trained assessors conducted field evaluations supported by GPS-enabled monitoring.
The ministry said 60 national awards had been announced across various categories, while state-level winners would be honoured separately at award ceremonies in their respective states.
