Uttarakhand lags behind in Swachh Survey, not even a single city in national ranking even after ten years

Even after the completion of ten years of Swachh Bharat Mission, Uttarakhand has not been able to make it to a single major award category. Yesterday, at the Swachh Survey 2024–25 award ceremony held at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi, where the cities performing best in cleanliness across the country were honored, Uttarakhand once again had to be content with improving its ranking. However, Lalkuan Nagar Panchayat has been ranked in the Promising Clean City – State category. Experts have described this as a mere formality.

Anoop Nautiyal, founder of Dehradun SDC Foundation, said that this is a matter of great regret. In such a situation, introspection is needed. States like Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh are consistently performing excellently in the national rankings, while Uttarakhand is constantly missing. This is not the result of any one city, but the indifference of the system of the entire state and the lack of political and administrative priority.

He said that under Swachh Survey 2024–25, cities across the country were honored by dividing them into five population categories. In which cities with population more than 10 lakh, 3–10 lakh, 50,000–3 lakh, 20,000–50,000 and less than 20,000 were included. He expressed grief that while many other cities like Indore, Surat, Noida, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Ujjain, Mysore, Ambikapur, Tirupati and Lonavala are constantly setting examples, Dehradun, Haridwar, Roorkee, Rishikesh, Haldwani and all other cities of Uttarakhand are constantly out of the list.

On the other hand, on this whole matter, MLA from Dharampur Assembly and BJP leader Vinod Chamoli, who has been a mayor twice in the past, said that the effect of administration has definitely been seen in the last few years. However, the way the effect should have been seen, the effect has not been seen as effectively. He said that during his time a plan for solid waste management was put in place, perhaps it is not working properly. Apart from this, the entire management is not a small task. Everyone has to give their cooperation in this. The Municipal Corporation and the government can only provide facilities. Vinod Chamoli said that it is the responsibility of every citizen to stay clean and keep the city clean. On the other hand, former Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat said that Dehradun needs to work harder. He hopes that Dehradun’s ranking will definitely improve in the coming time.

Let us tell you that despite the smart city project of 1400 crores and the budget of crores spent by Dehradun Municipal Corporation every year, Dehradun city has not been able to come in the top 10 clean cities of the country. Experts have considered the failure of the government that any city of Uttarakhand did not come in the cleanliness category.