Indore cleanest city in India for the fourth time, five others rated 5-star

MP city is the cleanest for the fourth time in a row, according to government’s Swachhata Warrior ranking.

Indore, Ambikapur, Navi Mumbai, Surat, Rajkot and Mysuru have been rated as five-star cities, 86 cities as three-star and 64 cities as one-star as per the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs’ rating protocol for garbage-free cities. The announcement was made during the Swachh Survekshan awards declared by Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri. It is meant to monitor the performance of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, launched in 2014.

The survey was conducted in 4,242 cities, 62 cantonment boards and 92 Ganga towns and was completed in 28 days. Indore city in Madhya Pradesh emerged as the cleanest city for the fourth time in a row, Surat and Navi Mumbai won the second and third position respectively in the more than 100,000 population category. Mysuru city in Karnataka had won the award for the cleanest city of India in the first edition of the survey in 2016, while Indore had retained the top position for three consecutive years.

Chhattisgarh won the prestigious title of the cleanest state in the more than hundred urban local bodies category, while Jharkhand was adjudged the winner in the less than hundred urban local bodies category. An additional 117 awards were also handed over by the Minister… 

Govt identifies 170 districts in India as hotspots, 207 potential hotspots

The officials said that health facilities in a buffer zone outside the containment zones will be oriented and people facing SARI and influenza-like symptoms will be tested there

The Union Health Ministry has identified 170 districts as Covid-19 hotspots and 207 districts as potential hotspots, officials said on Wednesday, reiterating that there has been no community transmission of the disease in the country so far.

Addressing the daily briefing on coronavirus situation in the country, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Health Lav Agarwal said that states have been asked to classify districts which have reported a higher number of cases as hotspots, the districts where cases have been reported as non-hotspots, and green zones where no cases have been reported. “Hotspots are those districts which are reporting more number of cases or where the rate of growth of Covid-19 cases is high,” Agarwal said, adding a detailed direction has been issued to states stating consolidated efforts are required to utilise this period of lockdown to curb the spread of the virus.

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“Cabinet secretary held a video conference today with all chief secretaries, DGPs, health secretaries, collectors, SPs, municipal commissioners and CMOs where hotspots were discussed and orientation on field level implementation of containment strategy was given.”

“They were told about large outbreak containment strategies, cluster containment strategies. Delineation of buffer and containment zone, parameter mapping, defining of entry and exit points were also discussed in detail,” he said. The joint secretary said movement of people will not be allowed in containment zones except for those related with essential services and special teams will search for new cases and samples will be collected and tested as per sampling criteria.