Garbage-free cities: Rajkot, Surat in top 6

NEW DELHI: Ambikapur in Chhattisgarh, Rajkot and Surat in Gujarat, Mysuru in Karnataka, Indore in Madhya Pradesh and Navi Mumbai have been ranked as top six garbage-free cities out of 1,435 municipalities which participated in first such national-level ranking exercise by the housing and urban affairs ministry.
Municipal areas from Maharashtra had giant's share in rankings under four categories - one, three, five and seven star.Out of 141 cities which qualified for ranking, 79 were from Maharashtra. No municipal area could qualify for seven-star rating. New Delhi Municipal Council found place in the 3-star category and Delhi Cantonment, Noida, Ghaziabad and Karnal got one-star ranking. Declaring the results, Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri said next year's rankings will cover all 4,372 statutory urban areas.