DW BUREAU / Chandigarh The city beautiful Chandigarh has bagged the award for best performing Union Territory under the "Safaimitra Suraksha Challenge" for 2021. The Union Minister of Housing & Urban Affairs Sh. Hardeep Singh Puri today felicitated the award to Sh. Ravi Kant Sharma, Mayor, Chandigarh at the 'Swachh Amrit Mahotsav' hosted as part of Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0 by Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA) at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi. While elaborating about the programme, the Mayor said that the award ceremony, organized to recognize the good work done for Swachhata by towns/ cities, States and Union Territories under various initiatives of the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban), viz. Swachh Survekshan 2021, Safaimitra Suraksha Challenge, and certifications for Garbage Free Star rating for cities. He said that Chandigarh emerged as the top performer, across different population categories among Union Territories in the "Safaimitra Suraksha Challenge", launched last year by MoHUA to eradicate human fatalities from hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks. He said that in the last one year, the SafaiMitra Suraksha Challenge has been able to propel the 'manhole to machine hole' revolution in urban India through initiatives such as credit linkages of SafaiMitras with banks, on-the-job trainings and setting up of helpline number 14420 in over 190 cities ? a citizens' grievance platform. While in Swachh Survekshan-21 (conducted from April, 2020 to March, 2021), Chandigarh bagged 16th rank in more than 10 lakh population. This time covering 4320 cities, including 62 cantonment boards, Swachh Survekshan 2021 was completely digitalized as the data was collected through multifarious platforms like apps and portals especially designed for conducting the assessment. The Mayor said that the assessment began from March 1, 2021 to March 31, 2021. He said that the survey was divided into three major parts including Service level progress (25 indicators) comprising waste segregation and collection, processing and disposal of waste and sustainable sanitation; Certification (2 indicators) on the bases of Star rating of Garbage free city (GFC) and ODF++ and Water + parameters for certification. Besides this there was major parameter Citizens' Voice (25 indicators) comprises citizen feedback, citizen engagement and experience, Swachhata App, innovations and best practices. (editor@dailyworld.in)