Navi Mumbai has been named India’s cleanest city in the Swachh Survekshan Awards 2025-26, ending Indore’s eight-year run at the top. President Droupadi Murmu presented the award to Navi Mumbai Mayor Sujata Patil at the 10th Swachh Survekshan Awards ceremony at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi on 11 November 2026. Navi Mumbai finished first in the Super Swachh League among 4,751 cities, ahead of Surat in second place and Vijayawada in third. The city had placed third in the previous edition. The win puts Navi Mumbai at the top of the national cleanliness survey.
How Navi Mumbai took the top spot
The 10th edition of the survey, run under the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, graded urban local bodies across 43 indicators in 10 categories. The categories covered segregation, collection and transportation of waste, solid waste management, visible cleanliness, sanitation access, used water management, welfare of sanitation workers and community participation. Feedback from 27 million citizens fed into the scores, giving residents a direct say in the ranking. The theme for the edition was “Swachhata Ki Nayi Pehel, Badhayein Haath, Karein Safai Saath”. Navi Mumbai also retained its seven-star Garbage-Free City rating and Water Plus certification.
The survey drew on feedback from 27 million citizens, and their answers sat alongside the scores from the field checks. The 10 categories in the survey covered the full chain of urban cleanliness, from the segregation of waste to its collection and transport, and from solid waste management to the state of public sanitation. The welfare of sanitation workers was scored as well, and community participation counted toward the final result. The survey is in its 10th edition, and the awards ceremony took place at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi.
Where Indore stands now
Indore did not feature in the top three because it was moved into a newly created Mentor City category. The category sits under the Swachh Shehar Jodi programme, which was launched on 27 September 2025 across 33 states and union territories. Indore and its partner town Depalpur ranked second in the Mentor City category, behind Ahmedabad and Sanand. The change explains why a city that led the rankings for eight years is absent from the top three this time. Indore kept its place in the awards through the new category, and its second-place finish there came behind the Ahmedabad and Sanand pairing.
Navi Mumbai and the million-plus cities
In the category for cities with a population above one million, Visakhapatnam ranked first, followed by Jabalpur and Lucknow. The Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation has functioned since 1992 and governs the nodes from Airoli to Belapur. The corporation has run the city since 1992, and its area runs from Airoli to Belapur. The award for the city came in the Super Swachh League, the top tier of the survey, which covered 4,751 cities in all.
Union Minister Manohar Lal said detailed scores will be released shortly. The full break-up will show how the top cities scored on each of the 43 indicators. The city had placed third in the previous edition, so the move to first place is a climb of two spots. Its seven-star Garbage-Free City rating and Water Plus certification stayed in place alongside the top award. The scores will give the numbers behind the ranking, and the minister said they will be made public soon. The award was presented at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi on 11 November 2026, and the ceremony marked the 10th edition of the survey. The survey runs under the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban, and the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs runs it.
The award was presented at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi on 11 November 2026, with President Murmu handing the honour to Mayor Sujata Patil. Navi Mumbai now holds the title that Indore kept for eight years. Detailed scores will follow shortly, according to the minister.