Parameters pertaining to wastewater treatment and reuse and fecal sludge management have been given special focus, Hardeep S Puri, Minister of State (I/C) for Housing & Urban Affairs said in the newly-launched SwachhSurvekshan 2020(SS 2020) league. Launching the SS 2020 League, he said that there will be a quarterly cleanliness assessment of cities and towns in India. This will be integrated with SwachhSurvekshan 2020, the fifth edition of the annual cleanliness survey of urban India to be conducted from January – February 2020 by Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs under the aegis of Swachh Bharat Mission- Urban (SBM-U). Shri DurgaShanker Mishra, Secretary, MoHUA, Shri V.K.Jindal, Joint Secretary & Mission Director of SBM(U) besides senior officers of the Ministry were also present at the launch function.

“Every year, the SwachhSurvekshan is redesigned innovatively, to ensure that the process becomes more and more robust, with focus on sustaining the changed behaviours. However, one concern that was commonly voiced was that cities cleaned themselves up just before a survey and slipped down after that. This year, therefore, we are launching the ‘Continuous Survekshan’ – the SS 2020 League, where cleanliness assessments will happen throughout the year – similar to the continuous assessments that are followed in schools and colleges – and feed into the larger annual survey in January 2020,” he said.