Key Points

New Delhi [India], September 27 (ANI): The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has launched the Swachh Shehar Jodi (SSJ) initiative, a structured mentorship and collaborative action program involving 72 mentor cities and around 200 mentee cities, the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs said in a release on Saturday.

Based on their recent performance in the Swachh Survekshan rankings, top-performing cities have been identified as mentor cities and paired with low-performing mentee cities. Implemented under the Swachh Bharat Mission - Urban (SBM-U), Union Minister Manohar Lal rolled out the SSJ initiative.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the mentor and mentee cities in a national event at Sonipat, the ministry added.

The SSJ initiative represents one of the largest time-bound and structured mentorship frameworks in the urban waste management sector, aiming to foster knowledge and experience sharing, peer learning and transforming best practices in sanitation and waste management across urban India.

Across successive editions of Swachh Survekshan--the world's largest urban sanitation survey--several cities have consistently demonstrated exceptional performance, high citizen engagement, and resilient governance despite leadership and operational challenges.

This has prompted ongoing discussions on scaling and replicating these best practices in other cities. In line with this, the Super Swachh League was introduced in this year's Swachh Survekshan (SS).

Cities that ranked 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in SS 2022, 2023, and 2024 were inducted as top performers across five population categories in the league. The idea was to encourage top-performing cities to strive for higher aspirational standards, while also motivating other cities to improve and aim for top ranks.

The mentor cities are the top-performing cities that are part of the Super Swachh League, the top three cities featured across population categories in SS 2024, and promising clean cities that emerged across States/UTs as part of SS 2024. Mentee cities were chosen from the lowest ranks in their State's latest SS cumulative rankings, considering their geographical proximity to their paired mentor cities.

On August 26, 2025, MoHUA released guidelines for the SSJ initiative, officially pairing mentor and mentee cities. The mentee cities will get direct exposure to well-performing cities to replicate their best practices.

The Ministry has launched a 100-day program to showcase the impact of city-to-city mentorship in driving urban transformation. During this period, each mentor-mentee pair will collaboratively develop action plans with clearly defined milestones - focusing on experience sharing and knowledge transfer.

MoHUA will provide strategic direction and policy-level support to ensure effective implementation of the Swachh Shehar Jodi across States. This initiative is supported under the capacity-building component of the Swachh Bharat Mission.

Nearly 300 MoUs were signed simultaneously across the nation in the presence of all participating cities and their political executive heads, thus marking the beginning of a 100-day phase of creating a dynamic platform for knowledge-sharing, mentoring, and handholding, which will be evaluated in Swachh Survekshan 2026.

- ANI