Top 20+ Cleanest Cities In India: Swachh Survekshan Awards 2026 Ranking List

Q: Which city was named India’s cleanest city in the Swachh Survekshan Awards 2025–26, and which city did it replace at the top?

Navi Mumbai (Maharashtra) was named India’s cleanest city in the Swachh Survekshan Awards 2025–26, replacing Indore, which had held the top spot for eight consecutive years.

Q: Which cities ranked first across the four population-based Swachh Shehar categories in 2026?

Greater Visakhapatnam topped the above-10-lakh population category, Ujjain led the 3–10 lakh category, Dewas ranked first in the 50,000–3 lakh category, and Vita topped the 20,000–50,000 population category.

Q: Which cities secured first place in the Super Swachh League and the special geographic categories?

Navi Mumbai topped the Super Swachh League, while Rewa (Madhya Pradesh), Puri (Odisha), and Rudrapur (Uttarakhand) ranked first among riverfront towns, coastal towns, and Himalayan cities, respectively.

Q: What was the official theme of the Swachh Survekshan 2026 survey?

Conducted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs across 4,751 urban local bodies, the 2026 survey carried the theme “Swachhata Ki Nayi Pehel – Badhayein Haath, Karein Safai Saath”.

Updated: 13 Nov 2026

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Top 20+ Cleanest Cities In India: Swachh Survekshan Awards 2026 Ranking List

Navi Mumbai in Maharashtra is India’s cleanest city in the Swachh Survekshan Awards 2025-26. It replaced Indore, which held the top spot for eight years in a row. President Droupadi Murmu gave away the awards in New Delhi on 11 November 2026. This year, 4,751 urban local bodies took part.

Top 20+ List of Cleanest Cities in India 2026

This list brings together all 24 award-winning cities from the Swachh Survekshan 2025-26 results. Only the first three are ranked overall. The “Category Rank” column shows each city’s position within its own category.

No.	City	State/UT	Award Category	Category Rank
1	Navi Mumbai	Maharashtra	Super Swachh League	1
2	Surat	Gujarat	Super Swachh League	2
3	Vijayawada	Andhra Pradesh	Super Swachh League	3
4	Greater Visakhapatnam	Andhra Pradesh	Above 10 lakh population	1
5	Jabalpur	Madhya Pradesh	Above 10 lakh population	2
6	Lucknow	Uttar Pradesh	Above 10 lakh population	3
7	Ujjain	Madhya Pradesh	3-10 lakh population	1
8	Chandigarh	Chandigarh	3-10 lakh population	2
9	Guntur	Andhra Pradesh	3-10 lakh population	3
10	Dewas	Madhya Pradesh	50,000-3 lakh population	1
11	New Delhi (NDMC)	Delhi	50,000-3 lakh population	2
12	Sagar	Madhya Pradesh	50,000-3 lakh population	3
13	Vita	Maharashtra	20,000-50,000 population	1
14	Aska	Odisha	20,000-50,000 population	2
15	Panaji	Goa	20,000-50,000 population	3
16	Rewa	Madhya Pradesh	Riverfront towns	1
17	Bilaspur	Chhattisgarh	Riverfront towns	2
18	Varanasi	Uttar Pradesh	Riverfront towns	3
19	Puri	Odisha	Coastal towns	1
20	Alappuzha	Kerala	Coastal towns	2
21	Ratnagiri	Maharashtra	Coastal towns	3
22	Rudrapur	Uttarakhand	Himalayan cities	1
23	Jammu	Jammu & Kashmir	Himalayan cities	2
24	Shopian	Jammu & Kashmir	Himalayan cities	3

What Is Swachh Survekshan Award?

Swachh Survekshan is India’s yearly cleanliness survey, run by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. It began in 2016 with just 73 cities and has grown to 4,751 now. Cities are ranked on cleanliness, sanitation, and waste management. The 2026 theme was “Swachhata Ki Nayi Pehel – Badhayein Haath, Karein Safai Saath”.

How Were India’s Cleanest Cities Decided?

The ministry said more than 3,000 trained assessors checked the cities. GPS-based real-time monitoring tracked their work, and proofs were uploaded and verified digitally with quality checks. Cities in the mentorship programme showed clear gains:

Indicator	Earlier Survey	2025-26
Visible cleanliness	48%	70%
Door-to-door waste collection	52%	74%
Source segregation	16%	30%

Top 6 Cleanest States in 2026 (Swachh Survekshan)

Here is the list of the top 6 cleanest states in 2026 as per the Swachh Survekshan Award 2025-2026:

Rank	State	Winning Cities	Cities
1	Madhya Pradesh	5	Jabalpur, Ujjain, Dewas, Sagar, Rewa
2 (tie)	Andhra Pradesh	3	Vijayawada, Greater Visakhapatnam, Guntur
2 (tie)	Maharashtra	3	Navi Mumbai, Vita, Ratnagiri
4 (tie)	Uttar Pradesh	2	Lucknow, Varanasi
4 (tie)	Odisha	2	Aska, Puri
4 (tie)	Jammu & Kashmir	2	Jammu, Shopian

Seven other states and UTs have one winning city each: Gujarat (Surat), Chandigarh, Delhi (NDMC), Goa (Panaji), Chhattisgarh (Bilaspur), Kerala (Alappuzha), and Uttarakhand (Rudrapur).

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Hardika Shekhawat

Current Affairs Content Writer

Hardika is a current affairs content writer at Utkarsh Classes with 3 years of experience in academic content writing. She creates clear, exam-ready current affairs articles for UPSC, SSC, RAS, Banking, Railway and State PCS aspirants.