President Ram Nath Kovind on Saturday announced that Indore bagged the award for being India’s cleanest city. This announcement was made during the Swachh Survekshan 2021 awards. This is the fifth time in a row that Indore has won the award in the sixth edition of the event.

Surat in Gujarat, which grabbed the second spot in the cleanest cities’ list last year, has retained its position this year as well. Meanwhile, Vijaywada in Andhra Pradesh has bagged the third position in the list. In 2020, Navi Mumbai in Maharashtra was hailed as the third cleanest city in India.

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Chhattisgarh has been awarded cleanest state in the annual cleanliness survey while Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh has won the cleanest Ganga town in the Swachh Survekshan 2021’ awards.

In a social media post, Union housing and urban affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri congratulated Indore and its “people, political leadership and municipal corporation,” among others.

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The ministry also highlighted the improvements in the performance of several states and Union territories and said that six states and six UTs have shown an overall improvement, ranging between 5% and 25%, in their overall ground level improvement.

With 1,500 more cities that have notified the ban on use, sale and storage of non-biodegradable plastic bags, so far 3,000 city administrations have implemented it, the ministry said.