The New Indian Express News

MoHUA launches 10th Swachh Survekshan, enabling citizens to share opinions through multiple platforms

NEW DELHI: Over the years, citizens voice has become a strong tool for assessment in Swachh Survekshan, which consistently reflects the strength of citizens perception and engagement with swachhata, especially visible cleanliness. To further amplify the initiative, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has designed its 202526 toolkit to give citizens opinions greater power and weightage. Starting this year, citizens will be able to share feedback round the year through multiple platforms, including the Vote For My City App and Portal, MyGov App, Swachhata App, and through QR codes. The citizen validation weightage has been increased considerably. Following the release of the toolkit, the field assessments are expected to begin from mid-February to March 2026. The GFC (Garbage Free Cities) and ODF (Open Defecation Free) certification assessment will also commence from mid February. Union Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Manohar Lal released the toolkit for the 10th edition of Swachh Survekshan in Bhopal on Saturday. To reinforce quality assurance and institutionalize strong feedback and grievance redressal, Swachh Survekshan has introduced a tightly monitored, protocol-driven assessment framework. A national oversight team anchors the process, complemented for the first timeby a dedicated single-point-of-contact in-charge for each state or union territories (UTs), said officials. Over 3,000 trained field assessors from across the country will conduct a 45-day, on-ground survey covering all ULBs, supported by real-time, GPS-enabled monitoring. The entire processfrom evidence submission to verificationis fully digital, transparent, and rigorously quality-checked. Swachh Survekshan has been assessing Ganga towns as part of its urban cleanliness framework. Expanding its scope, the assessment will now include river towns across the country. A separate matrix has been introduced for coastal areas to bring it under the Swachh Survekshan ambit. Fostering a healthy competition amongst cities, Survekshan has defined the matrix for swachhata. It has helped in benchmarking of assessment parameters, creating a roadmap for Swachh Shehar, steps and components to become a Swachh Shehar and ultimately enabling cleaner cities through on-ground visible swachhata. The ministry MoHUA launched the largest time-bound and structured mentorship framework in urban waste management mentorship programme under Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U); Swachh Shehar Jodi (SSJ), in September. As part of the initiative, 72 mentors and 200 mentee cities signed Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) to foster knowledge transfer, peer learning, and replication of best practices. To strengthen mentorship and peer learning, a new award category has been introduced to recognize Swachh Shehr Jodis, based on the average score of jodis, with recognition across each population category, said officials.