With three of its cities ranked in top 10 in the country, Andhra Pradesh has topped southern States with more than 100 Urban Local Bodies, in the Swachh Survekshan 2020 ranking, an annual cleanliness ranking survey by the Central government. It also became the only southern State to have three cities in the top 10.
The State scored 1,785.65 points and stood sixth, while Chhattisgarh with 3,293.56 points topped the country among 12 States with more than 100 ULBs. Neighbouring Tamil Nadu is the only other southern State in the category which settled at the 10th place scoring 1,156.01 points.
Vijayawada, Tirupati and Visakhapatnam bagged places in the top 10 best performing cities in two categories.
In the national ranking of cities with more than 10 lakh population, Vijayawada secured fourth place with a score of 5,280.32, and Visakhapatnam secured ninth place with 4,918.44 score. In all, 47 cities were ranked under this category.
In 2019, Vijayawada was ranked 12th, and in 2018 it was ranked fifth. Similarly, Visakhapatnam was ranked 23rd in 2019 and seventh in 2018.
Vijayawada Municipal Corporation also bagged the award ‘India’s Cleanest Big City’, while Tirupati was awarded the title ‘Best Self Sustainable Small City’.
In the national ranking of 382 cities with a population between 1 lakh and 10 lakh, Tirupati bagged sixth place with 5,142.76 points.
Next to it, Rajahmundry ranked 51st, Ongole ranked 57th, Kakinada (58), Tenali (75), Kadapa (76), Chittoor (81), Hindupur (93) and Tadipatri (99).
Twenty other ULBS from the State, including Guntur, Kurnool, Nellore and other cities, ranked beyond 100.
Also, among the top 25 cities with more than one lakh population, Vijayawada bagged sixth place. It is followed by Tirupati at 12th place and Visakhapatnam at 17th place. Andhra Pradesh is the only State in south India to have more than one city in the top 25 list.
A total of 4,242 ULBs of the country took part in the ranking survey of which Andhra Prdesh had 110 ULBs.