<span style="color: #222222;">Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry launched the field assessment of Swachh Survekshan -2021 at a web event in New Delhi today.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">This will be the sixth edition of the annual cleanliness survey.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Swachh Survekshan was introduced in 2016 as a competitive framework to encourage cities to improve the status of urban sanitation while encouraging large scale citizen participation.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Speaking at the webinar, Secretary of Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry Durga Shankar Mishra said, the survey has led to a spirit of healthy competition among cities and towns.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The journey that started in 2016 with only 73 cities with million plus population has grown manifold, with 434 cities in 2017, 4,203 cities in 2018, 4,237 cities in 2019 and 4,242 cities in 2020.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Cities have been regularly filling in their data, updating their progress in the MIS along with running several citizen centric campaigns in preparation of Swachh Survekshan-2021.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">More than 2,000 assessors will go on the field to assess the performance of cities this time.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Every year, the on-field assessments takes place between 4th January to 31st January.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">However, this was delayed by two months due to the COVID pandemic and will now be conducted between 1st to 28th of March.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The Swachh Survekshan framework is redesigned innovatively every year, to ensure that the process becomes more robust.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Keeping in mind the Ministry's efforts towards ensuring sustainability of the sanitation value chain, the SS- 2021 indicators focus on parameters pertaining to wastewater treatment and reuse along with faecal sludge.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Similarly, the crucial issues of legacy waste management and remediation of landfills have also been brought to the fore in this edition of Survekshan.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Mr Mishra also touched upon how Swachh Survekshan has become a tool for citizen engagement in the spirit of a true 'Jan Andolan'.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">He said, he is happy to share that the SS-2021 has already garnered over three crore citizens' feedback through a variety of platforms such as the Vote for Your City App, Swachhata App and Swachh Survekshan portal, amongst others.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The Ministry further announced that apart from ranking cities and states, districts will also be ranked.</span>