Indore loses crown after 8 years, Navi Mumbai India’s cleanest city

Indore, ranked the cleanest city for the eight years straight, has lost its pride of place in the central government’s annual cleanliness survey. In fact, it does not even figure among the top three.

Navi Mumbai has secured the top position as the cleanest city in the Swacch Sahar League category, followed by Surat and Vijayawada.

In the 3–10-lakh-population category, Ujjain has emerged as the cleanest city, followed by Chandigarh and Guntur.

Also read: How Indore, India’s cleanest city, became an inventive street food hub

In the 10 lakh-plus population category, Greater Visakhapatnam has emerged as the cleanest city, followed by Jabalpur and Lucknow.

The cleanest towns

Among the cleanest riverfront towns, Madhya Pradesh’s Rewa has secured the first position, followed by Bilaspur and Varanasi in second and third positions, respectively.

According to the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry, in the Swachh Coastal Town category, Puri bagged the first position, followed by Kerala’s Alappuzha and Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri.

Rudrapur emerged as the cleanest Himalayan city, while Jammu secured the second position.

Also read: How Indore has emerged as India's cleanest city — sixth time in a row

President Droupadi Murmu gave away the Swachh Survekshan Awards 2025-26 to the winners at an event held in New Delhi on Wednesday (November 11).

Indore’s slide on clean cities list

In September, Indore slid from first place to second in the 2026 Clean Air Survey as well.

The city, which topped the list with a score of 200 out of 200 in the 2025 survey, fell just one point short of Lucknow and failed to retain its position.

At that time, the local administration had announced intensified measures to reduce air pollution in the city. However, now it has dropped off the clean city list as well.

(With agency inputs)