On December 20, 2025, Union Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), released the toolkit for the 10th edition of the Swachh Survekshan (SS), the world’s largest urban cleanliness survey, in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh (MP).
- Toolkit is the official assessment guideline issued by MoHUA, with an aim to set assessment parameters and act as a roadmap for cities.
Exam Hints:
- What? Release of Toolkit for 10th Swachh Survekshan
- Who? Union Minister Manohar Lal Khattar
- Where? Bhopal (MP)
- Theme: ‘Swachhata Ki Nayi Pehel-Badhayein Haath, Karein Safai Saath’
- Expanded coverage: All river towns; separate coastal assessment matrix
- Assessment: 45-day survey(February–March 2026)
- New Award: Swachh Shehar Jodi (SSJ) for combined city performance
- Launched under: Swachh Bharat Abhiyan; first survey conducted in 2016
About Swachh Survkeshan 2025-26:
Theme: The theme for SS 2025-26 is “Swachhata Ki Nayi Pehel-Badhayein Haath, Karein Safai Saath”.
Citizen Participation: For the first time, citizens can share feedback throughout the year using digital platforms such as Vote For My City Application(app), MyGov App, Swachhata App, and Quick Response (QR) codes.
Expanded Coverage: The scope of SS has been widened to include river towns nationwide, beyond earlier coverage of only Ganga towns, and a separate assessment framework for coastal areas has been introduced to address their distinct sanitation and waste management challenges.
Assessment Framework: Over 3,000 trained field assessors will conduct a 45-day on-ground survey across all Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), using Global Positioning System (GPS)-enabled monitoring.
- The field assessments are expected to conduct from February to March 2026, along with Garbage Free Cities (GFC) and Open Defecation Free (ODF) certification assessments.
Swachh Shehar Jodi(SSJ): SS 2025–26 introduces a new award to recognise top-performing Swachh Shehar Jodis(SSJ) based on their combined performance across population categories.
- In September 2025, MoHUA launched the Swachh Shehar Jodi (SSJ), under Swachh Bharat Mission – Urban (SBM-U).
- Under this initiative, 72 mentor cities and 200 mentee cities signed Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) to share best practices in urban waste management.
About Swachh Survekshan(SS):
Launch: It was launched under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan(SBA), with the objective of making India clean and open-defecation-free by 2 October 2019.
- The first survey was conducted in 2016 by the MoHUA under the SBM-U.
Benchmark Performance: The initiative aims to foster healthy competition among cities, benchmark sanitation performance, drive on-ground, visible cleanliness, and improve urban service delivery and citizen satisfaction.
About Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA):
Union Minister – Manohar Lal Khattar(Karnal, Haryana)
Minister of State (MoS) – Tokhan Sahu (Constituency – Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh)
