Why Indore Is a Zero‑Waste Leader: A Student’s Study of Cleanliness, Community and Urban Planning
When you walk through the streets of Indore today, you notice something unusual for an Indian city, there are no garbage bins and no piles of trash rotting in the corners of the street. The city has achieved a clean surrounding, for which it has won the title of India’s cleanest city for eight years straight.
The city achieved its current clean city status through continuous waste management systems and citizen participation, who participated in keeping their city clean. The story of Indore’s rise to the top of the national cleanliness rankings shows how the city achieved success through hard work, creative solutions, and community dedication.
Indore’s Approach to Managing Waste
Indore currently manages 1200 tonnes of daily solid waste through its waste processing system. The achievement becomes exceptional because the city processes all of its municipal solid waste. Daily waste collection operates through door-to-door pickups, requiring all households and businesses to separate their waste materials at the source. Most households practice waste separation into wet and dry categories, which helps to improve recycling. The city has transformed into a ‘bin-free’ space by removing all public garbage bins and now collecting waste directly from residential and commercial areas.
The city’s journey toward cleanliness faced some difficulties. The city faced slight ignorance from the people. The city had to start imposing fines for improper waste disposal. Three factories were fined in early 2025 after an inspector from Udyog Nagar Palda found they were directly emptying chemical waste into drainage lines. Indore Municipal Corporation IMC also imposed fines on organisers of a ‘Mela’ for littering.
IMC’s Key Initiatives that Transformed the City
The Swachh Bharat Mission, launched in 2014, established the framework that shaped Indore’s development. The IMC introduced several initiatives requiring residents to separate their waste at home, built bio-CNG plants and created large-scale composting sites to handle wet waste. The city processes wet waste through composting and bio-CNG production, while dry waste is recycled or converted into waste-to-energy systems. The city developed zero-waste events, ensuring that public gatherings produced no unmanaged waste and the achievements proved its dedication to cleanliness through these initiatives.
A Community‑Driven Cleanliness Model
Indore’s community-driven model of governance is the key factor enabling the city to achieve its cleanliness goals. The public awareness campaigns and cleaning drives, combined with strict monitoring practices, have created a functioning system. The IMC uses public-private partnerships to boost operational performance. Bio-CNG plants convert organic waste into fuel that powers city buses.
The system achieves two benefits: reducing landfill waste and supporting environmentally friendly city transportation. The system now has improved accountability through the usage of GPS waste collection vehicles and digital monitoring technologies.
How Indore’s Cleanliness System Works Every Day
The Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) has taken strict measures regarding waste segregation, and in the past, it distributed free bins to households that weren’t following the rules.
Volunteers are assigned to each part of the city and are called ‘safai mitras’, who collect waste from houses every morning.
They have waste-processing facilities where organic waste is sent to a separate unit for composting, and recyclable waste is sold to recycling companies. All hazardous waste is sent to the incinerators for burning.
Sewage is treated in three advanced sewage treatment plants. They are equipped with the best technology, ensuring that the biochemical oxygen demand stays below the safe limit of 30. This treated waste is then sent into the Kanha tributary of the Chambal River.
The Devguradiya Gobardhan Bio-CNG plant is Asia’s largest municipal solid waste-based facility. Set up on a reclaimed 15-acre former dumping ground at an investment of ₹150 crores, it processes 550 tonnes of wet organic waste daily to produce up to 17,000 kg of bio-CNG and organic compost, further helping reduce pollution and waste and reduce garbage in dumps.
The government uses GPS tracking to monitor where each garbage collection vehicle goes, which route it takes, and to set alerts for delays. They gather information about the vehicle’s speed, routes, where it stops, and even the amount of waste in the bins.
Streets are kept clean by over 8500 workers using motorised vehicles with sprinklers. Roads in commercial areas are cleaned three times daily.
But the most crucial reason for the city being the cleanest in India is that its citizens are responsible for their surroundings. They contribute towards maintaining their surroundings.
What other cities can learn from Indore?
Other Indian cities, like Mumbai, should also take similar measures and learn from Indore. Considering it is a bigger, more populated city with more than 20 million people, compared to Indore with more than 3 million, maintaining cleanliness can be hard, but they should also be putting in more effort to keep the city clean.
Having more workers cleaning the streets and using more technology, such as the street-cleaning vehicles Indore’s government has invested in, would also be greatly helpful.
The main difference between Indore and the rest of India’s bustling cities is that the people of Indore work with the government, and the government of Indore works with the people. In my view, the lesson other cities’ citizens should take from Indore’s citizens is their high civic sense. Their collective will to keep this city clean is highly commendable.
They should also consider implementing GPS tracking for garbage collection vehicles to ensure that every area’s trash is picked up on time, and they should start enforcing stricter waste segregation rules.
Other than that, they can also adopt technologies such as the ‘Devguradiya Gobardhan Bio-CNG plant’. There should be greater investment in keeping the surroundings clean, such as hiring more staff and running programs like the ‘safai mitras’.
Drawing inspiration from Indore
Indore has made cleanliness stricter and easier with mandatory source segregation, designated composting pits, and strict penalties for violators. The government has taken strict measures to ensure that the city remains clean. They are truly showing great progress towards their cleanliness goals.
Their initiatives, such as hiring more staff and running programs like the ‘safai mitra’ (GPS-tracked garbage collection vehicles), waste-processing factories, and other high-tech initiatives, such as the bio-CNG plant to convert waste into fuel, are all amazing ways to keep their city clean.
We, as citizens, should all be mindful of keeping our city clean by doing simple things, such as segregating our waste and not littering.
This city has been remarkable, with its citizens and government working together to achieve this level of cleanliness. Other cities and states in India should learn from Indore and aspire to achieve the same level of cleanliness. I respect how they have risen above the usual cleanliness standards in Indian cities and hope that other cities follow in their wake.
Advika Karve
Grade 9, JBCN International School, Mumbai
About our Writing Program Student
Advika is a 13-year-old who loves breakdancing, art, and listening to music. She also enjoys spending time with animals and playing the guitar.
References:
Swachh Bharat Mission – Indore’s Clean-Green Bid
Sustainable Waste Management In Indore: A Case Study : Earth5R
How Indore Became India’s Cleanest City (And How Others Can Follow)
IMC imposes fines for improper waste disposal | Indore News – The Times of India
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