The city has become invincible when it comes to cleanliness. In a country like India, this city has been able to do it for 8 years in a row. Every year, Indore snatches the golden broom and wins the title of India’s cleanest city in the Swachh Survekshan 2025. So, where are the other cities in this race? They aren’t even in the race because banana peels, plastic wrappers, filthy tobacco stains and a few cows routinely join the competition for them. Urban cleanliness is something India has the most trouble with.
However, while most cities are still suffering from overflowing bins and poor civic sense, Indore is shining year by year. So, how is Indore pulling off this cleanliness battle, and why do other cities keep tripping up? Why do Mumbai and Delhi, despite all their glitz and bling, continue to have poor hygiene? And just how dirty are India’s dirtiest? Let Corporate Soldiers pick the dusting cloth and mop the haze for you!
Let’s Take Cleanliness Lessons From Indore!
Grab your masks and dust off your sense of humour, Delhites and Mumbaikars, your urban sanitation isn’t something to be proud of. Are you too proud to learn from Indore? While you prepare excuses for your city, let’s see what Indore is doing right and what lessons you can take from it!
No Dumping Here And There
Do you just pick out your trash and dump it in the nearby waste bin because your ‘gaadiwalah’ didn’t show up? Indore does it with ‘Door-to-Door’ collection for every household. No exceptions! The municipal corporation makes sure that every waste gets collected daily. They have GPS-fitted trucks and hence, can track whether they are doing their job right or not. Now here’s a thing, citizens of Indore don’t just rely on the municipal corporation, they do teamwork. They are so involved that even your snooziest neighbour will pop out to hand over their trash when the ‘Indore number one’ jingle rolls by. This tells us how attentive they are!
They Take Waste Segregation Seriously!
What is that one nation that reminds everyone of cleanliness? It’s Japan. Japan takes waste segregation seriously, and hence, it is a country that inspires everyone. Indore follows the same rule. No sluggish behaviour when it comes to waste segregation. It doesn’t stop at the classic ‘wet and dry’ kind of segregation, it operates in full rainbow mode, which means wet, dry, plastic, e-waste, sanitary, hazardous. Yes, this is the proper way of segregating the waste. Here, waste is processed daily, which keeps street bin-free and clean. So, if you ever mix banana peel with plastics here, your neighbours might knock at your door.
Turning Waste-to-Wealth
So, ‘Is segregating the waste the only thing?’ No, the magic and art of cleanliness doesn’t end here. The process isn’t just in cleaning, but in the art of converting the garbage into treasure gold. Indore has bio-CNG plants that can process up to 692 tonnes of wet waste into fuel. This fuel can be used for city buses and other transport systems. Also, instead of letting landfills pile up like forgotten homework, or trashy mountains like in Delhi, Indore converts its waste (wet, dry, and hazardous) into wealth via composting, recycling, and even generating electricity. So, fuel and electricity, two major gains from the garbage. Delhi, note it down, you have huge mountains of waste, start segregating now!
Government’s Duty? No, it’s Basic Civic Sense
Delhi, can you be like Indore’s citizens? Or ‘Are you too proud to pick your own garbage, clean your own spit, and believe that money will do it for you? What we lack is basic civic sense and our involvement as citizen. From multi-lingual campaigns to engaging Bollywood tunes, Indoreans have been excessively active in keeping their city clean. ‘No littering’ is almost a religion here, not just a rule. While we are keeping a ‘Chalta hai’ attitude for our poor civic behaviour, Indorians don’t tolerate such casual behaviour.
Decentralized Waste Processing and Tech Use
Indore has 600+ micro facilities that handle waste collection locally. This means their waste transportation remains efficient and reduces the stinky burden of landfill sites. Here, ‘Mini Material Recovery Facilities’ work overtime so you don’t have to hold your breath on your morning walks. Clean spots, cleaner city.
We use tech to entertain ourselves, being Netflix bingers and Instagram scrollers. Indorians are using tech to maintain their city’s hygiene. They use App-based complaint systems, while municipalities use real-time GPS tracking, CCTV, and fines for spitting or public urination to ensure discipline. Also, they distributed free dustbins to households and installed 3,000 bins across the city to make an impact.
Let’s Switch to Poha!
Dear Delhi people, it’s time to lose some belly and get fit. If you think this is all the government doing the job for Indore, you are wrong. Indore’s legendary poha may have something to do with its citizens’ morning enthusiasm for segregating waste. After all, nothing makes you want to keep your streets clean like the promise of the crispest breakfast! So, while you are filling up your stomach with all the fries, fat-loaded street foods and snacking, Indorians are doing all the wonderful things with steamed poha. Jokes aside, urbanites, it’s time to implement lessons we took from Indore!
Why Can’t Other Cities Copy Indore?
- Many cities launch pilot projects in enthusiasm but lose steam in enforcement, especially when public attention shifts to the next viral meme.
- Larger metros, such as Delhi and Mumbai, struggle to standardize collection and segregation across the population and chaotic urban layouts.
- In some cities, people have accepted filth as a normal part of their life and the city. When you are used to stepping over three cows, a pile of trash is barely a blip, isn’t it?
- Regular changes in leadership (especially in Delhi’s case) or a lack of clear accountability let projects languish. Indore, by contrast, saw political and bureaucratic alignment. This means less fighting, more cleaning.
- Indore absorbed its informal waste-pickers into the formal system. They gave them stability while raising their standards. This is a step most cities haven’t cracked.
Our Tip
If other cities treated garbage like a political opponent, never letting it settle, always looking for ways to outsmart it, maybe we will finally give Indore some competition! Isn’t Delhi? Let’s end this ‘chalta hai’ attitude and learn some important things from Indore. A clear vision, discipline, technology, and learn civic behaviour. We need to shake off apathy and treat cleanliness as front-page news, not as municipal fine print.
