Lucknow is officially clean. Someone should probably tell Chowk. The City of Nawabs has scored 198 out of 200 in the 2026 Swachh Vayu Sarvekshan, edging out Indore by just one point among Indian cities with a population above 10 lakh.
Electric buses, electric waste-collection vehicles, mechanised road sweepers and scientific waste processing have given Lucknow something to celebrate: cleaner air and a civic-cleanliness effort that is clearly working.But there is another Lucknow that does not appear quite as spotless on paper. It begins where the wide boulevards give way to narrow lanes, where the green belts disappear and the garbage bins overflow, where a pothole can be as much a part of the landscape as a centuries-old building. This is Purana Lucknow: Chowk, Nazirabad, Akbari Gate and the neighbourhoods that give the city much of its character and deserve much of its civic attention.
As someone born and brought up in Lucknow, I am delighted that my city has been recognised. But I cannot help but ask an inconvenient question: which Lucknow are we talking about? A ranking can only tell you where a city stands. A walk through its lanes will tell you how it lives. Parts of the city have changed dramatically, Gomti Nagar or Hazratganj in particular, its newer and better planned areas, wider and cleaner roads, regular cleaning drives, green belts, colourful walls and improved civic infrastructure often make it look like a different city altogether. Lucknow has cleaned up nicely. Just not everywhere.Where the wide roads end
