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The government on Sunday sought to de-link the city rankings for 2014-15, issued a day ago, from the Swachh Bharat Mission launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in October 2014.
The rankings, released as part of Swachh Bharat, showed several capital cities and other important towns as well as municipalities as laggards in the cleanliness pecking order.
"Swachh Bharat ranking of 476 cities across the country released yesterday (Saturday) was not based on the progress achieved by respective cities under the Swachh Bharat Mission launched in October last year,'' said a statement from the urban development ministry, which commissioned survey.
According to the rankings, New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), which covers only the elite parts of the city in the Lutyens zone, was at 16 th position, while Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) area, making up for most of the capital region, was ranked a dismal 397 th out of a total of 476 surveyed. Varanasi, the constituency from where Modi won in the Lok Sabha elections last year, is at 418 th position. Uttar Pradesh showed only one city, Etawah, in the top 100.
The Swachh Bharat Mission is being implemented in all the 4,041 statutory cities and towns in the country while the rankings released on Saturday pertained only to 476 cities, each with a population of above 100,000, it added.
Data collection for the rankings had started in January 2014, much before the Swachh Bharat Mission was launched in October 2014, the statement clarified. "Out of the five agencies involved in the survey, four of them completed the survey in August 2014 - before Swachh Bharat Mission was launched."
To reiterate that the latest rankings are not a sign of failure of Modi's mission, the statement said, "The survey results reflected the situation mostly prevailing in the 476 cities and towns before the launch of Swachh Bharat Mission in respect of open defecation and solid waste management practices."
Capital cities performed badly, with Kolkata at 56 th , Chennai 61 st , Shimla 90 th , Bhopal 106 th , Greater Mumbai 140 th , Srinagar 152 nd , Lucknow 220 th , Hyderabad 275 th , Gandhinagar 310 th , Jaipur 370 th and Patna at 429 th . Other important cities such as Surat was at 63 rd position, Ahmedabad at 79 th, Darjeeling 129 th , Tirupati 137th, Agra 145 th , Srinagar 152nd, Dehradun 360th, Ajmer 401 st and Amritsar at 430 th.
The survey showed Mysuru on the top with three more from Karnataka - Hassan, Mandya and Bengaluru - figuring in the list of 'the best 10' in the country. West Bengal had 25 cities/towns in the first 100, according to the survey.
