NEW DELHI: Five states from the North East, including Meghalaya, have made to the top 10 list of cleanest states, according to a Rural Development Ministry report that was released on Thursday.
Sikkim has been adjudged the cleanest state while Jharkhand comes last in the list on the condition of sanitation in rural areas of 26 states in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state Gujarat is ranked 14th. Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Manipur are among the top 10 states.
The result of survey conducted last year by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) was released on Thursday by Rural Development Minister Narendra Singh Tomar.
However, as per the district-wise survey, which was conducted by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation in May and June this year, Jaintia Hills, East Garo Hills and Ri Bhoi in Meghalaya appear at the bottom of the list of districts from the hilly belt in the North East and Special category.
The other districts from the northeastern states that appear in the bottom are Anjaw, Papum Pare, Changlang, West Siang and West Kameng in Arunachal Pradesh; Bongaigaon in Assam and Lahul and Spiti in Himachal Pradesh.
Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi tops the list of 22 in the hills, according to a Swachh survey in rural areas this year. Shimla, Hamirpur, Kullu and Chamba in Himachal Pradesh; West Sikkim, East Sikkim, South Sikkim and North Sikkim in Sikkim and Mizoram’s Champhai districts have made it to the top 10 cleanest districts.
The ministry, however, maintained that the districts placed at the bottom of the list were not “worst performing”.
“Ever since the survey was launched nearly two years ago, we had identified 75 better performing districts as far as the Swachh Bharat campaign is considered. So we carried out a third party field survey of these districts to see the reality this year. So these are not badly performing districts. It is just that some of the well-performing districts are doing better than others,” a Ministry official said.
According to latest report compiled by the Ministry on sanitation coverage, as on Thursday, Sikkim has retained the top slot with 99.9 percent sanitation coverage, followed by Himachal Pradesh (97.11 percent) and Kerala (96.35 percent).
Haryana (87.33 percent), Uttarakhand (86.42 percent), Mizoram (84.75 percent), Meghalaya (82.47 percent), Manipur (81.04 percent) and Punjab (78.89 percent) are the other states on the top 10 list. (PTI)
