Take a look at the essential events, concepts, terms, quotes and developments shaping current affairs every day and brush up your knowledge. Here’s your UPSC Current Affairs Knowledge Nugget for today on Swachh Survekshan and urban sanitation in India.The 10th edition of the Swachh Survekshan Awards (2025-26) recognised Visakhapatnam as the cleanest city among cities with a population of over one million, followed by Jabalpur and Lucknow, while Navi Mumbai topped the separate Super Swachh League. Beyond the rankings, the awards offer an opportunity to understand how India assesses urban cleanliness through Swachh Survekshan and the broader framework governing urban sanitation and waste management in India.Key Takeaways:1. Visakhapatnam emerged as the cleanest city among cities with a population of over 1 million, followed by Jabalpur and Lucknow. The awards were presented by the President and organised under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs’ (MoHUA) Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0.2. Super Swachh League: Previous years’ winners were assessed under a separate category called the ‘Super Swachh League’. Navi Mumbai secured first place, followed by Surat and Vijayawada.3. Other population categories:— Cities with 3 lakh-10 lakh population: Ujjain ranked first, followed by Chandigarh and Guntur.Story continues below this ad— Cities with 50,000-3 lakh population: Dewas (Madhya Pradesh) secured first place, followed by New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) and Sagar (Madhya Pradesh).4. New award categories: The 2025-26 edition introduced categories for the cleanest riverfront town, coastal town and Himalayan city.— Rewa was recognised as the cleanest riverfront town, Puri as the cleanest coastal town, and Rudrapur as the cleanest Himalayan city, followed by Jammu and Shopian.5. Swachh Sheher Jodi: The initiative pairs better-performing cities with lower-performing cities as mentors to improve their cleanliness performance. Ahmedabad-Sanand secured the first position, followed by Indore-Depalpur and Tirupati-Kuppam. Story continues below this ad— Indore, which had been ranked the cleanest city for eight consecutive years, secured second place in the Swachh Sheher Jodi category along with its partner town, Depalpur.— Launched on 27 September 2025, the Swachh Shehar Jodi initiative is an urban waste-management mentorship and peer-learning programme.Also Read | Knowledge Nugget| Global Carbon Budget: Why does the latest emissions assessment matter? Swachh Survekshan assesses the cleanliness and sanitation performance of Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and encourages improvements through competitive rankings. (Source: AI Generated Image)6. Swachh Survekshan: — It is an annual national cleanliness survey launched in 2016 by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) under the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U).Story continues below this ad— It assesses the cleanliness and sanitation performance of Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and encourages improvements through competitive rankings.7. Swachh Survekshan 2025-26:—Assessment framework: The assessment evaluated ULBs against 43 indicators across 10 assessment areas including:waste segregation, visible cleanliness; mechanisation of desludging services; ecosystem strengthening; used-water management; advocacy for Swachhata; welfare of sanitation workers; grievance redressal; preventing open defecation and open urination, cleanliness of heritage sites, and behavioural change initiatives in schools. — A total of 60 national awards were announced across categories covering the Swachh Shehar Jodi initiative, Super Swachh League, Swachh Shehar (five population categories), Swachh River Front Town, Swachh Coastal Town, Clean Himalayan City and State First Swachh City.8. Swachh Vayu Sarvekshan: Lucknow topped the million-plus cities category, followed by Indore and Jabalpur. — It is an annual assessment of 130 cities under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), launched in 2022-23 by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).Story continues below this ad— Its objective is to assess pollution-control measures and implementation of city-specific Clean Air Action Plans, while promoting competition and innovation.— Categories: Million-plus population, 3–10 lakh population and below 3 lakh population.9. The PRAGATI-50 initiative (launched in September 2026) aims to develop 50 cities as Model Clean Cities through technology-driven interventions and continuous monitoring, reinforcing the vision of a Swachh and Viksit Bharat.Also Read | Knowledge Nugget | Swachh Vayu Sarvekshan vs AQI vs SAFAR: How India keeps track of its airBEYOND THE NUGGET: Rules for Urban sanitation and waste management1. The PRAGATI-50 initiative (launched in September 2026) aims to develop 50 cities as Model Clean Cities through technology-driven interventions and continuous monitoring, reinforcing the vision of a Swachh and Viksit Bharat.2. Solid Waste Management Rules: The new Rules, notified on 27 January 2026, came into force on 1 April 2026. The new rules include: — Four-way segregation and waste hierarchy: The Rules establish a waste hierarchy of prevention, reduction, reuse, recycling, recovery and disposal (as the last resort). They expand the existing wet-dry segregation system to include sanitary waste (sanitary towels, tampons and condoms) and special-care waste (medicines, paint cans, bulbs and tube lights). ULBs must provide green bins for wet waste, blue for dry waste and red bins for sanitary waste, where required in public toilets.— Bulk waste generators: Include entities meeting any of these criteria: built-up area of 20,000 sq. m or more, water consumption of 40,000 litres/day or more, or waste generation of 100 kg/day or more. They include residential societies, malls, colleges, hotels and large townships. Specified institutions and establishments must segregate waste at source and hand over recyclable waste to authorised entities.— Polluter Pays Principle: Environmental compensation may be imposed for non-compliance, including failure to register on the centralised portal, false reporting, forged documents and improper waste management. The higher landfill fees discourage disposal of unsegregated waste.— Digital tracking: A centralised online portal will track stakeholders and all stages of the solid waste management chain. Bulk generators, ULBs, waste transporters and processors, waste pickers, disposal facilities and specified large establishments must register on the portal.Also Read | How Solid Waste Management Rules 2026 seek to tackle India’s burgeoning waste problem3. Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rules, 2026: — The Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016 introduced reporting requirements and strengthened plastic waste management through Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). EPR was first introduced in India under the E-Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2011.— Single-use plastic ban: In 2022, the Centre prohibited identified single-use plastic items across 19 categories. These are items designed for one-time use before disposal.— Mandatory recycled content: The 2026 Rules prescribe progressively increasing category-wise recycled-plastic content targets from FY 2025–26 to FY 2028–29. For Category I (rigid plastic packaging), the requirement rises from 30% to 60%. For food-contact plastic packaging applications, companies may carry forward shortfalls for up to three years, subject to meeting at least one-third of the deficit annually.— End-of-life disposal: The Rules also recognise energy recovery through co-processing in cement and steel industries, waste-to-energy, waste-to-oil conversion and road construction, subject to applicable guidelines.Also Read | Knowledge Nugget | India’s new Solid Waste Management Rules 2026: 10 key points for your UPSC examPost Read QuestionWith reference to the Swachh Survekshan Awards 2025-26, consider the following statements:1. The 2025-26 edition introduced separate award categories for the cleanest riverfront town, coastal town and Himalayan city.2. The Swachh Sheher Jodi initiative better-performing cities with lower-performing cities as mentors. 3. The Super Swachh League was introduced to assess cities that had never secured top positions in previous editions.Which of the statement(s) given above is/ are correct?(a) 1 and 2 only(b) 1 only(c) 2 and 3 only(d) 1, 2 and 3Answer: (a) (Source: Vizag is cleanest city, Puri bags crown among coastal towns in Swachh Survekshan Awards 2025-26, 5 years of Swachh Bharat later, 11 crore tonnes of garbage still to be cleared, Flagship rural sanitation scheme extended, set to receive Rs 7,000 crore in Budget, How Solid Waste Management Rules 2026 seek to tackle India’s burgeoning waste problem, pib.gov.in, swmp.cpcb.gov.in, On the surface, Indore was India’s cleanest city)Click here to read the UPSC Essentials magazine for October 2026. Share your views and suggestions in the comment box or write to us at manas.srivastava@indianexpress.com.Subscribe to our UPSC newsletter. 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