Jamshedpur: Chas held on to its "cleanest city in the state" tag with a huge improvement in its all-India rank in the Swachh Survekshan 2018 ranking that was announced by the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs at Indore in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday.
The city was placed at the 19th spot against 41 in 2017 among the 4,203 cities surveyed this year.
Chas is not alone that showed a remarkable improvement in its rank.
Mango finished at 20 (against 131 in 2017), while the state capital ended at 21 (compared with 117 last year).
However, chief minister Raghubar Das's home constituency Jamshedpur, which was expected to be among the top 20, lagged behind at 30.
The steel city had bagged the 64th slot last year.
Dhanbad clinched the 53 spot (109 in 2017) while Deoghar stood at 56 (102), Giridih at 58 (81) and Adityapur at 64 (144).
Hazaribagh, which lagged behind last year's 91 to finish at 96, was the only exception.
In the less-than-1 lakh population category, Bundu finished 4, Chaibasa 14, Gumla 22 and Phusro 29.
Significantly, all these four local civic bodies had made their debut in the Swachh survey this year.
A visibly elated chief executive officer of Chas Municipal Corporation Jagadih Prasad Yadav said, "It is good that we have not only improved manifold but have retained the best civic body tag in the state. We had taken a host of steps, including extension of door-to-door collection of garbage across all 35 wards, launching night sweeping in commercial and densely populated residential areas, construction of over 20 modular toilets and ensuring their regular cleaning."
Mango Notified Area Committee (MNAC) special officer Rajendra Prasad attributed the performance to the citizen's support and its own initiatives that range from the installation modular toilets and prompt redress of grievances to the introduction of night cleaning and door-to-door collection of garbage.
Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) deputy mayor Sanjeev Vijaywargiya thanked the residents.
"I would like to thank the residents for helping us bag the first position among capitals in the citizen's feedback. Besides the efforts of civic officials, it the civic sense among residents that has helped us improve our rank. The urban development department officials also guided us in the right direction. We are determined to bag the top slot next year," he said.
JNAC special officer Sanjay Kumar Pandey expressed his resolve to further improve the city's rank.
"We tried our best along with Jusco (which looks after civic utilities in company command areas). I am satisfied with the rank and would like to finish among the top 10 cities next year," he said.
Dhanbad municipal commissioner Rajeev Ranjan said greater awareness drive in coordination with various social and professional groups contributed to the civic body's performance.
"We have installed a large number of community, public and modular toilets. However, we need to improve our door-to-door trash collection and improve our ranking next year."
With inputs from Ranchi & Dhanbad
