Sikkim, Kerala top in Swachhta survey, Jharkhand at bottom

Sikkim and the Left Front-ruled Kerala have been ranked as top performing states in a Swachhta (cleanliness) survey conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) while BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand have been placed among the last on the table.

An official report released here by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation on Thursday also found Dungarpur in Rajasthan and Panchmahal in Gujarat among the low ranking districts, while Sindhudurg in Maharashtra tops having recorded 99 percent of houses having access to safe toilets.

"A large scale household survey was carried Nadia district in West Bengal has been ranked second followed by Satara (Maharashtra) and Midnapur East (West Bengal).

Among the states, Sikkim has recorded 100 percent in the category of people using household/community toilets and 98.2 percent in the category of percentage of households having sanitary toilet.

Kerala has been ranked second, followed by Mizoram in third place and Himachal Pradesh in the fourth.

"A survey on Swachhta status was conducted by NSSO during May-June 2015 covering 73,176 households in 3788 villages across India," said the report entitled Swachh Survekshan - Gramin 2016.

The percentage figures have been derived by multiplying "the percentage of households having sanitary toilets and the percentage of people using household/community toilets of the people having access to toilets".

According to the survey, Chhattisgarh has 21.2 percentage of households having sanitary toilet while Jharkhand has only 18.8 percent.

Among the performing states besides Sikkim and Kerala, other states which show good results are Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Haryana.

The state of West Bengal has been ranked 12th while Jammu and Kashmir with 47.4 percent of households having sanitary toilet has been ranked 17th.

The report said that 75 districts including 22 from north east and special category states across the country were also shortlisted on the basis of their performance on following indicators as per the data available with the ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation.

Mandi in Himachal, West Sikkim in Sikkim, Shimla in Himachal have been designated as the three best performing districts among the north east and special category states while Papum Pare and Anjaw in Arunachal Pradesh have been ranked at the bottom of the table.

"We hope this report will not only help districts to understand how they have performed, but also instil a sense of positive competition among them. This will encourage improvement in the level of cleanliness, sanitation and hygiene," a spokesman for the ministry said.

--IANS

nd/rn