New Delhi: Navi Mumbai has secured the first position in the Super Swachh League category of the Swachh Survekshan Awards 2025-26, placing Maharashtra’s planned city ahead of Surat in Gujarat and Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh.
The results were announced on November 11, 2026, at an awards ceremony held at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi. President Droupadi Murmu presented the awards to the winning cities in the presence of Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Manohar Lal and Minister of State Tokhan Sahu.
Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) Commissioner Kailas Shinde and Mayor Sujata Patil received the recognition on behalf of the city. Deputy Mayor Dashrath Bhagat was also present.
The achievement follows Navi Mumbai’s third-place finish in the previous edition. Its rise to the top of the Super Swachh League marks a significant change in the category’s rankings.
Swachh Survekshan 2025-26: Top Three Cities in Super Swachh League
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs announced the following top performers in the category:
- First – Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra: Secured the top position in the Super Swachh League.
- Second – Surat, Gujarat: Finished as the second-ranked city.
- Third – Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh: Secured the third position.
The Super Swachh League is a special category introduced to recognise cities that have consistently performed well in earlier editions of Swachh Survekshan.
Unlike the regular population-based rankings, the league brings together cities with a record of high performance and assesses them against additional aspirational indicators.
What Is the Super Swachh League?
The Super Swachh League was introduced as part of the Swachh Survekshan framework to recognise cities that have demonstrated sustained performance in urban cleanliness.
Under the earlier eligibility framework, cities that secured a top-three position in at least two of the Swachh Survekshan editions conducted in 2021, 2022 and 2023 qualified for inclusion in the league, subject to the prescribed performance conditions.
The category was designed to encourage cities to maintain high standards rather than focus only on improving their position in a single annual assessment.
Navi Mumbai, Indore, Surat and Vijayawada were among the million-plus cities included in the league.
How Swachh Survekshan 2025-26 Assessed Cities
The 10th edition of Swachh Survekshan covered 4,751 urban local bodies across the country, making it one of India’s largest annual assessments of urban sanitation and cleanliness.
According to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, this year’s assessment introduced and strengthened several parameters to evaluate the delivery of sanitation services.
The assessment covered 43 indicators across 10 key domains, including:
- Waste segregation: Separation of waste at source.
- Collection and transportation: Door-to-door collection and efficient movement of waste.
- Solid waste management: Processing and scientific disposal of municipal waste.
- Visible cleanliness: Cleanliness of streets, public spaces and other urban areas.
- Access to sanitation: Availability and maintenance of sanitation facilities.
- Mechanisation of desludging: Use of mechanised systems for sanitation services.
- Used water management: Management and treatment of wastewater.
- Institutional strengthening: Improvement of systems and administrative capacity.
- Sanitation awareness: Public participation and behaviour-change initiatives.
- Sanitation worker welfare and citizen feedback: Worker safety, welfare, grievance redressal and public participation.
More than 3,000 trained assessors conducted field evaluations across the country. The process was supported by GPS-enabled monitoring, digital evidence submission and verification.
The survey also received feedback from approximately 2.70 crore citizens, highlighting the growing role of public participation in the assessment.
Indore’s Position in the 2025-26 Awards
Indore, which had held the top position in the country’s cleanliness rankings for eight consecutive years, did not feature among the top three cities in this year’s Super Swachh League results.
However, the city received recognition in another category.
Indore, paired with Depalpur as its mentee city, secured a leading position in the Swachh Shehar Jodi category. The award recognises collaboration between mentor cities and smaller urban local bodies to improve waste management and sanitation practices.
The top three city pairs in this category were:
- Ahmedabad – Sanand
- Indore – Depalpur
- Tirupati – Kuppam
The rankings were based on the combined performance of the mentor and mentee cities, recognising improvements achieved through knowledge-sharing and administrative collaboration.
Other Major Winners of Swachh Survekshan 2025-26
This year’s awards also introduced wider recognition for cities and towns across different population groups and geographical settings.
Some of the major results announced by the Ministry include:
- Super Swachh League: Navi Mumbai
- Million-Plus Population Category: Visakhapatnam
- Swachh River Front Town: Rewa
- Swachh Coastal Town: Puri
- Clean Himalayan City: Rudrapur
Jabalpur and Lucknow followed Visakhapatnam among the top three cities in the million-plus population category. Bilaspur and Varanasi secured the second and third positions in the riverfront town category, while Alappuzha and Ratnagiri followed Puri among coastal towns.
The awards also recognised 30 cities under the State First Swachh City category.
Navi Mumbai’s Cleanliness Efforts
Navi Mumbai’s municipal administration has relied on a combination of waste-management enforcement, regular sanitation operations and citizen participation to strengthen the city’s cleanliness systems.
The civic body has highlighted several measures supporting its sanitation efforts, including:
- Enforcement of solid waste management rules.
- Regular cleaning of roadsides, skywalks and public spaces.
- Use of the Swachhata App to receive citizen feedback and complaints.
- Focused sanitation drives in high-footfall public areas.
- Coordination between civic employees, sanitation workers and elected representatives.
The recognition places Navi Mumbai at the top of the Super Swachh League for the 2025-26 assessment cycle, while the latest results also underline the importance of sustained municipal services and citizen participation in urban cleanliness.
