1000 Cities Targeted To Become 3-Star Garbage Free By October 2024 : Hardeep Singh Puri

1000 Cities targeted to become 3-Star Garbage Free by October 2024” said Shri Hardeep Singh Puri, The Hon’ble Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs on the occasion of International Zero Waste Day 2023 in New Delhi. Highlighting the progress in the GFC-Star rating protocol, launched in January 2018 to encourage a competitive, mission-mode spirit among ULBs, he further said that the certification has increased exponentially since inception. While interacting with the ‘Swachhta Doots’ from across the nation, the Minister congratulated them for being change makers and leaders in their community and also turning challenges to livelihood opportunities.

Speaking about the achievements of the Mission, the Minister informed that urban India has become Open Defecation Free (ODF), with all 4,715 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) completely ODF, 3,547 ULBs are ODF+ with functional and hygienic community and public toilets and 1,191 ULBs are ODF++ with complete faecal sludge management. Further, waste processing in India has gone up by over four times from 17% in 2014 to 75% today. This has been aided through 100% door-to-door waste collection in 97% wards and source segregation of waste being practiced by citizens across almost 90% wards in all ULBs in the country.

Shri Puri expressed confidence that the resolve and determination shown in achieving the targets of SBM-U would be amplified manifold in the second phase of the mission (SBM-U 2.0) where India aims to become Garbage Free nation.He highlighted the importance of today’s ‘Garbage Free Cities’ rally in raising awareness about waste management in the country, as changes in consumption patterns and rapid urbanisation drive up waste generation.

Swahhata is a Jan Andolan now, receiving tremendous support from citizens.The Mission has mobilized millions of citizens across the country towards the goal of making cities clean,green,and garbage free. The campaigns have seen massive mobilization of youth and women leaders who have taken a positive step towards urban swachhata.The efforts towards transforming cities to become garbage free received a fresh impetus with the launch of Swachhotsav 2023,by Union Minister Shri Hardeep Singh Puri on 7th March, 2023.

The campaign, aimed to galvanize participation and leadership of women to realize the goal of ‘Garbage Free Cities’. A series of events and activities have been organized across cities from 8th March, 2023 onwards to celebrate and bring together women from different walks of life to lead the way towards building ‘Garbage Free Cities’. Swachhotsav campaign was a platform for over 400,000 women entrepreneurs taking up leadership role in urban sanitation. Participating in unique Yatra and the Mashaal March women took the responsibility of urbansanitation and led from the front to transform the urban landscape.

The Hon’ble Prime Minister launched Swachh Bharat Mission- Urban2.0,with the over all vision of creating “Garbage Free Cities”(GFC),there by placing India on a new trajectory of growth towards an ecosystem of holistic sanitation and waste management. Achieving Door-to-Door Collection, Source Segregation, Waste processing & Dumpsite remediation, IEC, Capacity building, digital tracking etc. are the components of creating a GFC.India is also promoting the zero-waste approach that entails responsible production, consumption and disposal of products in a closed, circular system.The Minister lauded the ‘Rally for Garbage Free Cities’ as a women led Jan Andolan, wherein lakhs of citizens have taken on the responsibility of cleaning their streets, neighbourhoods, and parks.

Shri Manoj Joshi, Secretary, MoHUA commended the role of women’s leadership in ensuring circularity of waste management and implementing a zero-waste approach turning waste into valuable resources. He stressed the need to upscale Self-help groups to a professional level so as to ensure higher income generation for these groups. Further, from ‘Women-in garbage management’ to ‘women-led garbage free cities’ are showing desired results in tune with the vision of our Hon’ble Prime Minister.

In the presence of Union Minister Shri Hardeep Singh Puri, the event saw participation of Mayors, Commissioners, and Mission Directors who discussed Circularity in Garbage Free Cities, Women and Youth for GFC, Business and Tech for GFC. The event also saw a Fireside Chat with Mayors where States like Bihar, Jharkhand, UP, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh shared their best practices and success stories.