Chandigarh, Aug. 8 -- A fortnight after Chandigarh was adjudged the second cleanest among big cities in India with a population of 3 to 10 lakh, Member of Parliament (MP) Manish Tewari raised concerns over the city's fluctuating performance in Swachh Survekshan over the years. Urging the Chandigarh municipal corporation (MC) to 'up its game', Tewari said that in the category of 'source segregation', the city's performance has shown a drastic drop - from 100% in 2023 to 14% in 2024-25. "This defies all logic and needs to be investigated," said the MP. Tewari had raised a question in the Parliament pertaining to the city's cleanliness rankings, asking the government whether it was aware that Chandigarh has failed to show improvement in categories of source segregation and garbage-free city despite being ranked under the Super Swacch League. The MP had also sought details of year-on-year performance in Swachh Survekshan since 2016, particularly in indicators related to source segregation, waste processing and door-to-door collection. He had also asked whether it is true that Chandigarh has consistently failed to achieve 100% source segregation. In response, Minister of State, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India, Tokhan Sahu, revealed that large-scale citizen-contact programmes are being run across states and union territories to strengthen citizens' participation and bring behavioural changes. Along with this, waste management methods are being improved through capacity-building measures in states and urban bodies, besides dissemination of success stories. MP Tewari said the cleanliness campaign should not be limited to rankings only; there is a need for change at the ground level. Urging the Chandigarh MC to improve its work and ensure transparency and uniformity in data reporting and overall cleanliness efforts, he pointed out that Chandigarh's recent claim to the second place was not in the original open category, but in a new category of cities with a population of 3 to 10 lakh. In 2016, Chandigarh stood second in the category of cities with 10 lakh-plus population, which was more like the open category. He also criticised the city's continued failure to achieve a 5-star rating under the garbage-free city certification, stating, "Despite being promoted as 'City Beautiful', we are consistently getting only 3 stars. It should have been a cent percent rating."...