Indore becomes India's first 'Water Plus' city

• The announcement was made by the central government on Wednesday under the Swachh Survekshan 2021.
• ‘Water Plus’ status is accorded to cities under the Swachh Survekshan survey on the basis of their performance in tapping the polluted water and preventing its flow in the rivers and other freshwater bodies of the region.
• Indore is also referred to as the ""cleanest city"" in India.

Swachh Survekshan

• It is an annual survey of cleanliness, hygiene and sanitation in cities and towns across India.
• It was launched as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, which aimed to make India clean and free of open defecation by 2nd October 2019.
• The first survey was undertaken in 2016 and covered 73 cities; by 2020 the survey had grown to cover 4242 cities and was said to be the largest cleanliness survey in the world.
• Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) is now in the process of conducting the sixth edition of the survey to rank all cities under Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U) with Quality Council of India (QCI) as its implementation partner.
• The objective of the survey is to:

1. Encourage large scale citizen participation
2. Ensure sustainability of initiatives taken towards garbage free and open defecation free cities
3. Provide credible outcomes which would be validated by third party certification,
4. Institutionalize existing systems through online processes
5. Create awareness amongst all sections of society about the importance of working together towards making towns and cities more habitable and sustainable.

• Additionally, the survey also intends to foster a spirit of healthy competition amongst towns and cities to improve their service delivery to citizens and move towards creating cleaner cities.

Water Plus city

• A Water Plus city certificate is provided to a city for maintaining cleanliness in rivers and drains under its administration.
• According to protocol and the toolkit provided by the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs, a city can be declared as Water Plus only after all wastewater released from households, commercial establishments, and the like is treated to a satisfactory level before releasing the treated wastewater to the environment.
• There are a number of criteria that need to be met before a city is declared Water Plus:

1. It must be ensured that the dirty water from the city does not go into any river or drain.
2. All public toilets in the city must be connected to sewer lines and must be cleaned.
3. 30 per cent of the city's sewer water has to be recycled and reused.