Chandigarh fails to improve in garbage-free category

Though Chandigarh has found a place among the Super Swachh League cities under the 3–10 lakh population category, its performance in the Swachh Survekshan 2024-25 has remained dismal in two areas — door-to-door waste collection and segregation at source.

Vinod Vashisht, convener, City Forum of Residents Welfare Organisations, said Chandigarh again failed to upgrade its ranking to 5-star or 7-star garbage-free cities (GFC). Twelve cities in the country had already achieved the 7-star certification and 22 the 5-star tag, he added.

He said out of 23 cities that moved to Super Swachh cities this year, many were still above Chandigarh with either 7-star or 5-star ratings. On the basis of citizen feedback and field assessments, the 3-star rated city has failed to achieve 100% door-to-door waste collection and has merely 14% waste segregation at source.

The Chandigarh Municipal Corporation has been participating in the Swachh Survekshan ever since its inception in 2016 when it had secured the second rank among the 73 mainly million-plus population cities. Under the above 1 lakh population category during the 2017 survey, Chandigarh stood 11th among 434 participating cities.

In 2018, it was ranked third among 4,203 cities and in the 4th edition of the survey, a fully digitised paperless exercise covering 4,237 cities, the national ranking of Chandigarh fell to the 20th rank. In the August 2020 survey results, Chandigarh recovered marginally in rankings and was placed 16th among 4,242 cities. A year later, the city nosedived to the 38th rank among 4,320 urban local bodies under the above 1 lakh population category. Under all urban local bodies category, the city’s overall ranking was 66. In the 2022 survey, Chandigarh ranked 12th and last year 11th.

Even as Chandigarh has been awarded as a Swachh Super League City under the 3 lakh-10 lakh population category, the official website of the UT Administration shows the city’s population over 10 lakh as per the 2011 Census.

The Swachh Survekshan 2024-25 adopted a smart, structured approach to assess urban cleanliness and service delivery, using 10 well-defined parameters with 54 indicators offering a complete view of sanitation and waste management in cities. A total of 4,589 urban local bodies participated in the survey.

Chandigarh