Sindhudurg in Maharashtra has been declared as the cleanest district in the very first survey of sanitation standards which was conducted in 75 districts of rural India. The survey was done as a part of Swacch Survekshan and the results were announced on 22 September 2016.

The 75 districts were recognised on the basis of data available with the Ministry of drinking water and sanitation. These districts were further categorised on four basis: access to toilets, usage, littering in public places, stagnant waste water in the households. “The ranking aimed to spread a level of competitiveness among states and districts and to ensure that the knowledge of best practices are implemented,” said Parameswaran Iyer, Secretary, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation.

Swachh Bharat Mission, an ambitious Rs 1.96 lakh crore program was initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi two years back, to promote cleanliness in India by 2019. 53 districts located in the plains and 22 in hill states and the North East were covered in this survey. 13 out of 53 districts which were chosen from Gujarat, Dungarpur, Pali and Ajmer in Rajasthan were found to be lagging behind and ranked in the bottom five.

Among the cleanest districts in the plains were Sindhudurg (Maharashtra), Nadia (West Bengal), Satatra (Maharashtra), Midnapore East (West Bengal) and Kolhapur (Maharashtra). Ahmedabad, Anand and Panchmahal of Gujarat were found behind on all four parameters with poor access to sanitation facilities, litter in public places and stagnant wastewater. Sikkim, Kerala, Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh, Nagaland claimed the top five spots with toilet usage ranging from 88% to 98% while Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha fared the worst, with just 17% to 24% households having access to sanitation facilities as reported by Hindustan Times.

Mandi in Himachal Pradesh is the cleanest and Anjaw in Arunachal Pradesh was ranked at the bottom in the survey conducted in 22 districts in hilly and North-Eastern states.