Navi Mumbai Crowned India's Cleanest City, Ending Indore's Eight-Year Reign

A clean, tree-lined street in an Indian city. (Photo: Pexels)

India has a new cleanest city. Navi Mumbai has topped the Swachh Survekshan 2025-26, the central government's annual cleanliness survey, ending Indore's remarkable eight-year run at the top of the national rankings. The results were announced on Wednesday, November 11, 2026, with President Droupadi Murmu presenting the awards at a ceremony at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi.

A New Name at the Top

Navi Mumbai secured the first position in the Clean City League, the survey's top category, followed by Surat in Gujarat in second place and Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh in third. The city's municipal corporation celebrated the win publicly, calling it the number one position in the country under Swachh Survekshan 2025-26. Navi Mumbai Mayor Sujata Patil accepted the award from the President at the ceremony.

The result is a major moment for the planned city across the harbour from Mumbai, which has steadily built a reputation for wide roads, planned neighbourhoods and organised waste management. This year, that work finally earned it the top honour in the country's biggest cleanliness contest.

What Happened to Indore's Streak?

Indore, in Madhya Pradesh, had been ranked India's cleanest city for eight consecutive years, a record no other city had come close to matching. This time, however, the city was placed in a separate category and did not feature in the top three of the main list.

Under a newly introduced initiative called 'Swachh Shehar Jodi', Indore was grouped as a mentor city and secured the second position in the Mentor City category along with its partner town, Depalpur. The idea is for experienced cities to guide smaller towns in improving their cleanliness, and Indore's new role recognises the experience it built during its long winning run.

Who Else Won?

The awards covered several categories beyond the overall ranking. Rewa in Madhya Pradesh was declared the cleanest riverfront town, while Rudrapur in Uttarakhand emerged as the cleanest Himalayan city.

Among cities with a population of more than 10 lakh, Greater Visakhapatnam took the top spot, followed by Jabalpur and Lucknow. In the category of cities with populations between 3 lakh and 10 lakh, Ujjain led the rankings. Among smaller cities with populations between 50,000 and 3 lakh, Dewas in Madhya Pradesh finished first and Sagar third. In all, 60 national awards were presented across five broad groupings in this tenth edition of the survey.

How the Survey Works

Swachh Survekshan is the flagship cleanliness assessment of the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban, run by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. This year's edition carried the theme 'Swachhata Ki Nayi Pehel – Badhayein Haath, Karein Safai Saath', and evaluated more than 4,700 urban local bodies on 43 different parameters, covering sanitation, waste management, citizen feedback and the cleanliness of riverfronts, coastlines and heritage spots.

The ministry said the mentoring programme had delivered visible results. In the towns paired with senior municipal mentors, the score for visible cleanliness rose from 48 per cent in the previous survey to 70 per cent this year, while access to sanitation improved from 11 per cent to 38 per cent.

For Navi Mumbai, the award is both recognition and a challenge. Staying at the top will be harder than getting there, with Surat and Vijayawada close behind and Indore eager to return. But for now, the city can celebrate a title that, for eight years, belonged to someone else.

What do you think — does your city deserve a place in India's cleanest list? Tell us in the comments.