Chhattisgarh bagged national awards for exemplary contribution in the field of sanitation and cleanliness on Thursday. The State was awarded the third rank in the category of ‘best-performing states’ in Swachh Survekshan Awards-2023 and Patan became the second cleanest city in the country in less than 1 lakh population category. Four urban bodies of the state, Raipur, Kumhari, Mahasamund and Arang also received awards for their good performance in the Swachh Survekshan-2023 organised by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

 

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai along with Deputy Chief Minister Arun Sao received the awards at the hands of Hon’ble President Droupadi Murmu at Bharat Mandapam Convention Centre in New Delhi. Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri and Secretary of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs Manoj Joshi were present at the event. Raipur has been awarded in the category of 5-star clean city within Chhattisgarh with a population of more than 1 lakh. Whereas, Mahasamund, Kumhari and Arang have been awarded in the category of clean city (East Zone) with population between 50 thousand to 1 lakh, in the category of clean city (East Zone) with population between 25 thousand to 50 thousand and in the category of clean city (East Zone) with population between 15 thousand to 25 thousand respectively.

 

On this occasion, Secretary to CM P Dayanand, Secretary of the Urban Administration Department, Dr Basavaraju S, elected public representatives, officers, coordinators and sanitation workers of many urban bodies of State also participated in the function. The annual awards were launched in 2016 as a part of the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban. The 2023 awards covered 4,416 urban local bodies, 61 cantonments and 88 Ganga towns. According to the Ministry, 1.58 crore online citizen feedback and 19.82 lakh faceto-face views were received as a part of the ranking exercise.