Quality Council of India, conducted its first-ever survey on behalf of sanitation ministry. The survey covered over 70000 households in over 2530 villages. Nearly 75 districts were shortlisted and Mandi, Himachal Pradesh was selected as the cleanest district in the country followed by Sindhudurg, Maharashtra.
Narendra Singh Tomar, drinking water and sanitation minister released the report on Thursday. He said that the intention of releasing this report publicly is to encourage a competitive spirit amongst districts. In future, it would push them to become cleaner districts and a better nation. Two categories were present in the report including districts in North East and hills and plains.
Mandi got 98.4 and Sindhudurg managed a total of 96.8 out of 100.
Gurgaon ranked 40 out of 53 districts of plain. Mainly Maharashtra districts were shortlisted and top 10 in North category were from Himachal. Few districts of Bengal also ranked in the districts of plain.
Four main criteria were judging parameters, a household with proper sanitation and toilets, clean public places, the household with no litter around and houses with no stagnant or standing water.
Reports revealed that toilet hygiene has been successfully achieved in households, but littering is still a problem over 50% public places. Most households also have the litter in nearby premises.
Sanitation secretary Parameswaran Iyer said that they conducted the three-month-long survey considering all aspects of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. The mere presence of toilets wasn’t criteria. Usage of toilets was monitored and it was found that there were improvements nearly 90%.
Another report was released from a survey conducted by NSSO last year. It had the ranking of 26 states based on sanitary toilets in the house and their usage. Jharkhand came last in the ranking and Sikkim topped.