Swachh Shehar Jodi Initiative:
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has launched the Swachh Shehar Jodi (SSJ) initiative.
- It is a structured mentorship and collaborative action program involving 72 mentor cities and around 200 mentee cities.
- Based on their recent performance in the Swachh Survekshan rankings, top-performing cities have been identified as mentor cities and paired with low-performing mentee cities. It is implemented under the Swachh Bharat Mission – Urban (SBM-U).
- It is aimed to foster knowledge and experience sharing, peer learning and transforming best practices in sanitation and waste management across urban India.
- The objective is to support comparatively low performing cities in improving their swachhata performance by drawing on the experience of mentor cities to:
- Replicate tested best practices in sanitation and waste management
- It is envisioned that the mentor cities will be those cities that adhere to the following criteria:
- Top performing cities that have featured across Rank 1, 2 or 3 in Swachh Survekshan (SS) 2022, 2023, and 2024 ( i.e. – cities that are part of the Super Swachh League)
- Top three cities that are featured across population categories in SS 2024.
- Promising clean cities that emerge across States/UTs as part of SS 2024.
- The mentee city may be selected on the basis of the following criteria:
- Featured in the bottom of the State cumulative ranking of the latest SS rankings
- Geographical proximity of the jodi cities to each other
- Funding: Both mentor and mentee cities may utilize the Capacity Building (CB) Funds allocated to each State/UT as part of SBM-U 2.0.
State/UT Governments are encouraged to top up this fund, if required. - Cities can also leverage funds from other sources / partner organizations.
