Swachh Shehar Jodi initiative:
President of India honoured India’s cleanest cities at the Swachh Survekshan Awards 2025–26 and appreciated the Swachh Shehar Jodi initiative.
- Swachh Shehar Jodi initiative aims to institutionalise structured mentorship, peer learning, and collaborative action between mentor cities and mentee cities from within the same State.
- It is implemented under the Swachh Bharat Mission – Urban (SBM-U).
- Nodal Ministry: Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA)
- The objective is to support comparitively 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
- Strengthen processes in mentee cities
- Support the waste processing set-up to improve visible cleanliness
- Improve citizen engagement for responsible behaviour change for swachhata
- Key features
- Under this, each mentor city and mentee city pair will jointly develop an Action Plan.
- Eight thematic Focus Areas:
- Visible cleanliness; waste segregation and transportation; scientific processing of waste; access to sanitation; used water management; mechanised desludging and worker welfare; Swachhata advocacy and citizen engagement; and citizen feedback and grievance redressal.
- 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.
- Under this initiative, 70 mentor cities have been paired with 191 mentee cities to facilitate knowledge-sharing and improve sanitation outcomes.
- Recognition in Swachh Survekshan 2025–26: The top three city pairs were Ahmedabad-Sanand, Indore-Depalpur and Tirupati-Kuppam.
