PRAGATI-50 Launched to Build 50 Model Cities for Swachhata

Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Shri Manohar Lal launched the PRAGATI-50 initiative in New Delhi, under which the Ministry has picked 50 model cities to set a higher benchmark of Swachhata. The selection follows the Prime Minister's directions at the 51st PRAGATI meeting, and the work will be carried out within the framework of Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0 through targeted, KPI-based action and technology-enabled monitoring.

How the 50 cities were chosen

The chosen cities are spread across 24 states, and the list deliberately mixes large cities, places of cultural importance, leading tourist destinations and economic centres. The Minister said these cities would go beyond routine sanitation work and emerge as clean role models for the rest of the country, with visible gains expected in urban cleanliness, solid waste management, used water management, sanitation and citizen participation. He added that he would personally chair review meetings once every two months to track progress. A PRAGATI-style digital review mechanism has been set up on the Swachhatam Portal, and ministry officers will be assigned specific cities for supervision and handholding. Minister of State Shri Tokhan Sahu said the initiative would help cities reach the Garbage Free Cities goal within a fixed timeframe, and asked states and urban local bodies to draw up micro-level action plans.

Other launches at the event

• Swachh Bharat Test Bed and Innovation Centre at Durgapur, set up with CSIR-CMERI as a national facility for research, product development, testing, validation, certification and capacity building in sanitation technologies
• The third cohort of Swachhata startups, launched with the Startup Incubation and Innovation Centre at IIT Kanpur, adding 13 startups and completing the Mission's national target of onboarding 75 startups
• The Swachhata Behaviour Change Digital Kosh, a digital repository of ideas, creatives, campaigns and communication resources for states and urban local bodies
• A Reduce, Reuse and Recycle (RRR) Centre at Sankalp Bhawan, New Delhi, described as the first such centre in a Union Ministry office, opened as part of Swachhata Hi Seva 2026
• A dedicated WhatsApp channel to make complaint filing on the Swachhata App easier for citizens

Documents released

The Ministry also released a Standard Operating Procedure for setting up secondary collection centres for construction and demolition waste, and guidelines for source segregation of municipal solid waste as mandated under the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2026. Secretary, Department of Urban Development, Shri Satendra Singh said the initiative follows a City as a Whole approach so that every stakeholder, partner and urban local body is part of the planning and the delivery. The Ministry framed the exercise as a step towards garbage-free cities as India moves towards Viksit Bharat 2047.