Jodi No. 1: Ahmedabad, Sanand are India’s cleanest pair of cities in Swachh awards

If the message and successes of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), India’s flagship cleanliness initiative, are to go beyond just a few cities and towns and spread widely across the country, collaboration and learning from peers is critical.

Two cities in Gujarat have just shown how it can be done.

Ahmedabad and its satellite town Sanand have secured the first rank nationwide in the ‘Clean City Pair’ category under Swachh Survekshan 2025-26, with Ahmedabad being the ‘Mentor City’ and Sanand the ‘Mentee’.

Indore (Mentor) and Depalpur (Mentee) in Madhya Pradesh, and Tirupati (Mentor) and Kuppam (Mentee) in Andhra Pradesh were declared the next two top-ranked jodis under the Swachh Shehar Jodi award.

Ahmedabad Mayor Hitesh Barot received the award from President Droupadi Murmu at an event organised by the Department of Urban Development in the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi on November 11.

Another Gujarat city, Surat, came in second nationally under the ‘Clean Cities of Super Swachh League’ (SSL) category, behind Navi Mumbai (Maharashtra) and ahead of Vijayawada (Andhra Pradesh).

The SSL was created to recognise and honour consistent overachievers who have maintained high sanitation standards over multiple years rather than having the odd good year. To qualify for SSL, cities must have ranked in the top three at least once in the preceding three years of Swachh Survekshan. They are judged on tougher indicators to encourage them to continuously innovate towards peer-led benchmarks in urban waste management.

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Surat has occupied either the first or second place in the list of India’s cleanest cities in every Swachh Survekshan since 2019.

How Ahmedabad swung it

On November 12, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) felicitated the city’s sanitation workers with flowers and sweets for the achievement.

AMC Commissioner Banchhanidhi Pani attributed Ahmedabad’s success entirely to the tireless efforts of the city’s dedicated sanitation workers. He promised that efforts relating to cleanliness and environment conservation would be further accelerated and intensified in the future.

Mayor Barot said: “The resolve to make Ahmedabad a clean and healthy city has today come to fruition in the form of a national award. The credit belongs entirely to all the sanitation workers of the AMC, their supervising officials, the elected representatives, and all residents of the city.”

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As Mentor City, Ahmedabad provided technical guidance and support to other cities in Gujarat — including Sanand — in areas including waste segregation, solid waste management, used water management, and welfare of sanitation workers.

“The national-level recognition for the joint efforts of Ahmedabad and Sanand stands as a proud outcome of everyone’s collaborative endeavours,” Barot said. “To sustain this achievement, it is essential that citizens, alongside sanitation workers, actively participate in cleanliness initiatives, ensure the proper segregation of waste, and maintain hygiene in public spaces,” he said.

The Mayor urged everyone to work together to ensure that Ahmedabad remained clean, beautiful, healthy, and hygienic in the future.

Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel congratulated both Ahmedabad and Sanand and their citizens on their cleanliness achievements.

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How the ‘clean ‘jodi’ award works

The top three ‘Swachh Shehar Jodis’ have been identified based on the combined score of the Mentor City (Swachh Survekshan 2024-25 awardee) and its paired Mentee City.

The ‘jodi’ initiative started after the 2024-25 award ceremony with the idea of “Each One, Teach One”. According to the government, the initiative is meant to draw on India’s traditional Guru-Shishya model to promote the sharing of knowledge and best practices among cities.

It aims to facilitate better-performing cities to support those that are seeking to improve their sanitation standards. The ‘Swachh Shehar Jodi’ award reflects the joint performance and collaborative efforts of both cities, thereby recognizing mentorship outcomes along with overall cleanliness and service delivery improvements. The idea is for the best performing cities to handhold cities with low scores to improve their performance, according to the government.

Other Swachh Survekshan awards

The Swachh Survekshan 2025-26 results highlighted improvements across urban India, with more than 350 urban local bodies improving their rankings by over 500 positions, according to an official release.

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More than 1,700 urban local bodies with populations below 50,000 also improved their rankings compared with 2024-25.

Sixty national awards have been announced under several categories this year. They include, apart from the ‘Swachh Shehar Jodi’ and ‘Clean Cities of Super Swachh League’ awards, ‘Swachh Shehar’ awards in five population categories.

The award categories have been expanded this year to include hill and Himalayan cities, as well as riverfront and coastal towns.