Competitive rankings have driven urban sanitation outcomes, but feedback must translate into better services. Critically analyse.

Swachh Survekshan is the urban cleanliness survey run by MoHUA under SBM-Urban. It started with 73 cities in 2016 and grew into the world's largest urban cleanliness survey [1]. Its rankings made cities compete on cleanliness. At the 2025-26 awards, the President said citizen feedback must now be used to improve services, not just to produce ranks [2].

How rankings drove outcomes

• Competition between ULBs: by 2021, 4,320 cities took part. Sanitation became a matter of civic pride and political credit [1].
• Citizen participation: the feedback process brings RWAs, youth and women into regular dialogue with municipal bodies. This builds trust and transparency [2].
• Governance signal: cleanliness is treated as an indicator of health and administrative accountability [2].

Limits of ranking-driven sanitation

• What is seen gets rewarded more than what is not: the survey rewards swept streets more than treated waste. A CAG audit found Haryana's ULBs processed only 49% of the waste they generated [3].
• Legacy dumpsites: 2,488 dumpsites were identified for remediation, and fewer than half had been fully cleared by early 2026 [4]. An award-winning city can still have a garbage mountain just outside its limits.
• Weak institutional base: CAG found ULBs without SWM plans or approved byelaws [5]. Tier-2/3 cities cannot copy Tier-1 models without engineers and funds. Under the 74th Amendment (12th Schedule), the SWM function was given to ULBs before the money and staff were.
• Hidden human cost: 471 sanitation workers have died during hazardous cleaning since 2019 [6]. Scores do not show how a city became clean.

Making feedback deliver better services

• Change the scoring to give more marks for verified processing and dumpsite remediation, which SBM-U 2.0 already funds [7].
• Treat each complaint as a service ticket: track how long it takes to resolve and publish the results ward by ward [2].
• Plan-first framework for Tier-2/3 cities: make an approved SWM plan and byelaws the condition for central capacity funds [2][5].
• Link scores to worker safety: require mechanised cleaning through NAMASTE, which has verified about 90,000 sewer and septic-tank workers [8].
• Effective, affordable and safe technology through partnerships with IITs and startups [2].

Rankings have made cleanliness a visible, competitive goal; their next test is depth. Moving from scoreboards to service delivery (processing, remediation and worker dignity) would advance SDG 6 and SDG 11. It would also fulfil the 74th Amendment's vision of accountable local government, so that clean cities are also well-governed cities.