The Congress bastion of Rae Bareilly Samajwadi Party's backyards in Etawah, Kannauj and Mainpuri, and Barh in Nitish Kumar's Nalanada are among the 50 towns government is targeting to turn '100% clean' under Swachh Bharat Mission by March 2017.
By next year these selected 50 towns will achieve all Swachh Bharat Mission targets including Open Defecation Free (ODF) status through construction of individual, public and community toilets, house-to-house collection of garbage and 100% processing of the same through a solid waste management plan besides spot penalties for littering.
The deadline for achieving 100% progress on all mission components of PM's pet project is October 2, 2019 and the Group of Secretaries (GoS) has fixed the new ambitious target of March 2017 in a presentation to the PM in January.
The holy cities of Haridwar and Tirupathi are also part of the 50-city list besides some state capitals like Shimla, Chandigarh, Raipur and Dehradun, Five towns of Bihar, nine are from Uttar Pradesh, UP Government has selected three places and Allahabad, Aligarh, Muzzafarnagar and Barabanki also feature in this list selected by UP.
