Pune : Saswad awarded Cleanest City amongst cities with less than 1 lakh population

Under the ‘Swachh Bharat Mission’, the competition for cleanliness among cities is getting tougher. Cities are witnessing a rapid transformation under the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0 of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. Due to behavioral changes in the citizens, the Mission has turned into a jan andolan, due to which new names are being added every year to the list of clean cities. 

Saswad, on the 15th till about last year, improved its cleanliness ranking sharply, on the back of similar unique initiatives towards swachhata. Not only this, the city achieved the ‘best ranking’ in the category of cities with ‘less than 1 lakh population’. Saswad was recently awarded and felicitated by the Hon’ble President of India, Smt. Droupadi Murmu at the ‘Swachh Survekshan Awards 2023’ ceremony held at Bharat Mandapam in Pragati Maidan, Delhi. The city also received a ‘3-star rating’ in the ‘Garbage-Free Cities’ (GFC) category.

Saswad has also been declared a Water+ City, surpassing ODF, ODF+ and ODF++ in the ‘Open Defecation-Free’ (ODF) category. This means that the city of Saswad has tackled the issue of open defecation and has implemented maintenance and operations of community and public toilets, due to which the problems of open defecation in slum areas have also ended. The Water+ category shows that the city is doing a great job in reusing waste water along with the cleanliness of toilets. The Used Water Management’ (UWM) focuses on treatment of used water by installing ‘Sewage Treatment Plant’ (STP) in this city and is being reused in other places including toilets. This helps in reduction of use of fresh water, contributing to water conservation.

On the theme of ‘Waste to Wonder’, ‘Waste to Wonder Garden’ has been developed in the city, in which Saswad Municipal Council has reused 21 tons of scrap metal and installed various attractive artefacts, statues, models etc.

Saswad has made special arrangements to dispose of 100 % waste. Apart from two bins for separating wet and dry waste in all garbage collection vehicles in the municipal council, Saswad has also created separate special compartments for sanitary and harmful household waste in these vehicles. After ensuring 100% segregation of waste at source, 100% waste processing model is also being worked on through ‘Material Recovery Facility’ (MRF) centers, due to which no waste is reaching the ‘legacy waste dumpsites’ i.e. landfills. Apart from this, whatever amount of waste is left behind, it is sent to scientific landfill. The work of bio-remediation has been completed 100% already in 2019 itself. After segregating all types of waste into different categories, it is being sent for recycling to the respective ‘waste to wealth’ plants, including ‘waste to compost’ and ‘waste to energy’ plants. Incineration machines have also been installed for sanitary waste.

Focussing on the security of SafaiMitras, Saswad has taken a big leap. Safety related training is being imparted to SafaiMitras at regular intervals. This city of Saswad has also received the ranking of 14th cleanest city at the national level today. This golden journey of Saswad towards cleanliness literally defines the new anthem of Swachh Bharat Mission ‘Naya Sankalp Hai, Naya Prakalp Hai’.