Kottayam: No city in Kerala figures among the first 250 on a new list of the 500 clean cities in India. Kochi, which had found the fifth place in 2014 and was ranked 55th last year, has fallen to rank 271 in this year's list.
Indore, Madhya Pradesh, takes the first place this year as the most clean city in India. The city was 149th in 2014, and 25th in 2016. It falls under the parliamentary constituency of Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan.
The state's capital, Bhopal, has been ranked second, while Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh gets the third rank.
Gonda in Uttar Pradesh, 125 km from capital Lucknow, is at the bottom of the list. Mysuru, the royal city of Karnataka, has dipped from the first place to the fifth.
Kozhikode: most clean in Kerala
Among Kerala cities, Kozhikode 'leads' with a rank of 254. The status of other cities and towns: Kochi 271, Palakkad 286, Guruvayur 306, Thrissur 324, Kollam 365, Kannur 366, Thiruvananthapuram 372, Alappuzha 380.
The Central urban development ministry drew up the list taking into consideration the action taken to make cities open-defecation free (ODF), and to remove solid waste. The survey, called Swachh Survekshan, aims to monitor the implementation of prime minister Narendra Modi's pet project Swachh Bharat Mission.
Kerala misses out
The central government will bear 35 to 40 percent of the expenses for states that submit excellent plans for waste removal in cities as per the Swachh Bharat Mission. The Center will finance efforts to complete projects that had to be abandoned midway. It will also provide cash to create awareness on cleanliness. Most of the other states are doing all this promptly, but Kerala seems to have turned a deaf ear and has hence not received any funding.
Rajasthan benefited from a Rs 345 crore support from the Center after the Swachh Bharat Mission started in 2014. Madhya Pradesh got Rs 302 crore, Gujarat Rs270 crore, Andhra Rs 208 crore and Tamil Nadu Rs 207 crore.
2017 ranking: state, point (total 2000)
1. Indore 1,807, 2. Bhopal 1,800 (both Madhya Pradesh) 3. Visakhapatnam 1,796 (Andhra Pradesh) 4. Surat 1,762 (Gujarat) 5. Mysuru 1,743 (Karnataka) 6. Tiruchirappalli 1,715 (Tamil Nadu) 7. New Delhi Municipal Corporation 1,707. 8. Navi Mumbai 1,705 (Maharashtra) 9. Tirupati 1,703.86 (Andhra) 10. Vadodara 1,703.07 (Gujarat).
10 unclean cities
New Delhi generates the maximum waste in India, 6,800 tonnes daily. Mumbai (6,500), Chennai (4,500), Hyderabad (4,200), Bengaluru (3,700), Kolkata (3,670), Ahmedabad (2,300), Kanpur (1,600), Pune (1,300), Lucknow (1,200) and Surat (1,200)
Alappuzha: a model for India
Despite lagging behind in cleanliness, Alappuzha finds a place among the best 10 waste removal models, with its 'Nirmala Bhavanam Nirmala Nagaram' project. The project started in 2012, even before Swachh Bharat Mission, has achieved success with waste collection at source, pipe composting and biogas plants.
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