Cities get star ratings for garbage management facilities

Six cities have been given 5-Star (Ambikapur, Rajkot, Surat, Mysuru, Indore and Navi Mumbai), 65 cities as 3-Star and 70 cities as 1-Star ratings on the basis of the results of the Star Rating of Garbage Free Cities for the assessment year 2019-2020 by Ministry of  Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA).

While making this announcement, Hardeep S. Puri, Minister of State (I/C) for MoHUA said: “The importance of sanitation and effective solid waste management has been brought to the forefront now due to the COVID crisis. ”  He added that the ministry has the Star Rating Protocol for Garbage Free Cities. He further said, “This certification is also a mark of trust and reliability akin to universally known standards.”

As many as  1.19 crore citizen feedbacks and over 10 lakh geo-tagged pictures were collected, and 5175 solid waste processing plants were visited by 1210 field assessors.

The new protocol will consider ward-wise geo-mapping, monitoring of the SWM value chain through ICT interventions like Swachh Nagar App, and zone-wise rating in cities with a population of 50 lakh+. In the light of the COVID crisis, MoHUA has issued detailed guidelines to all states and cities on special cleaning of public places and the collection and disposal of bio-medical waste from quarantined households.

Puri said, “MoHUA has also issued an advisory in this regard which touches upon the aspect of the provision of PPEs, health-check-ups, and payment of regular wages to sanitation workers,” adding that cities have also undertaken several other innovations to tackle COVID-19, while some cities have been making use of drones for the sanitization of public areas and some others have been making extensive use of fire tenders for the same.

Speaking on the grave issues of livelihood of the millions of people stranded due to the current state of lockdown situation, he informed, “A Special Micro-Credit facility for the street vendors to facilitate easy access is being launched which will support nearly 50 lakh vendors.  Similarly, to mitigate the hardships of urban migrants be it, workers, in manufacturing industries, etc, Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (AHRCs) are being launched.”

Annexure 1- Star Rating of Garbage Free Cities

5 Star Cities

3 Star Cities

1 Star Cities