Swachh Survekshan 2025-26: Navi Mumbai is cleanest city, Lucknow third among big cities

Navi Mumbai has been named India's cleanest city in Swachh Survekshan 2025-26, ending Indore's eight-year run at the top of the national cleanliness survey. President Droupadi Murmu presented the awards at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi on November 11, 2026, at a ceremony organised by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA).

The top three

In the Super Swachh League, the category for cities that have consistently ranked at the top in earlier editions, the results were:

• 1. Navi Mumbai (Maharashtra), which was third in the previous edition
• 2. Surat (Gujarat)
• 3. Vijayawada (Andhra Pradesh)

Indore remains part of the Super Swachh League but did not make its top three. It was also recognised in the Swachh Shehar Jodi (mentor-mentee pair) category, where Indore and Depalpur came second, behind Ahmedabad and Sanand.

Category winners

In the cities with a population above 10 lakh, according to the Press Information Bureau:

• 1. Greater Visakhapatnam
• 2. Jabalpur
• 3. Lucknow

News reports list the other population bands as follows: Ujjain, Chandigarh and Guntur (3-10 lakh); Dewas, the New Delhi Municipal Council and Sagar (50,000-3 lakh); and Vita, Aska and Panaji (20,000-50,000). These are from media reports, not the official release.

Other categories included River Front Town (Rewa, Bilaspur, Varanasi), Coastal Town (Puri, Alappuzha, Ratnagiri) and Clean Himalayan City (Rudrapur, Jammu, Shopian). In all, 60 national awards were given.

How Uttar Pradesh did

• Lucknow kept its third place among cities with more than 10 lakh people, the same position as in the previous edition.
• Varanasi came third in the River Front Town category.
• Several Hindi newspapers report Ghaziabad as UP's best-performing city, with a state-level award.
• UP's Urban Development Minister A.K. Sharma received the awards for the state.

The complete city-wise ranking list had not been published when this article was written. Reports from Agra said officials expected it within a few days. Claims about the ranks of other UP cities such as Noida, Prayagraj, Kanpur and Gorakhpur should be treated with caution until the official list is out.

What the survey measures

The 2025-26 survey is the tenth edition. According to PIB, it covered 4,751 cities (one media report gives a higher figure), collected feedback from about 2.70 crore citizens and used more than 3,000 assessors with GPS-enabled monitoring. Cities were scored on areas such as:

• Waste segregation, collection and transport
• Processing and disposal of solid waste
• Visible cleanliness of streets and public places
• Access to toilets and sanitation
• Used water management and mechanised desludging
• Welfare of sanitation workers
• Citizen feedback and grievance redressal

The official toolkit gives a total of 12,500 marks, including 10,500 for on-ground assessment and citizen feedback, 1,000 for Garbage Free City certification and 1,000 for ODF and Water+ certification.

Why it matters for residents

A better rank often brings more attention and funding to a city's sanitation work, but the survey also depends on residents. Segregating wet and dry waste at home, using the city's complaint app or helpline, and giving honest citizen feedback all count. Results and toolkits are published on the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) website, sbmurban.org.

Note: this is different from the Swachh Vayu Survekshan, a separate clean-air ranking in which Lucknow was recognised earlier in 2026.