Mysuru, Indore, Rajkot with other 3 cities get certified as 5-star garbage-free cities

NewsBharati    19-May-2020 15:40:31 PM
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New Delhi, May 19: Union Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri on Tuesday announced the results of garbage free-star rating for Indian cities. A total of six cities have been certified as 5-Star including Ambikapur, Rajkot, Surat, Mysuru, Indore, and Navi Mumbai with 65 cities as 3-Star and 70 cities as 1-Star for the assessment year 2019-2020.
 
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The Star Rating Protocol was launched by the Ministry in January 2018 to institutionalize a mechanism for cities to achieve Garbage Free status and to motivate cities to achieve higher degrees of cleanliness. While announcing the results of the Star Rating of Garbage Free Cities the Minister also launched the revised protocol for the Star Rating of Garbage Free Cities at the event.
 
 
 
Addressing the media, the Minister said, "The importance of sanitation and effective solid waste management has been brought to the forefront now due to the COVID crisis. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the present situation could have been much worse had it not been for the critical part that SBM-U has played in the last five years to ensure a high degree of cleanliness and sanitation in urban areas."
 
The Minister also said five years ago, the Ministry had introduced Swachh Survekshan (SS), the annual cleanliness survey for urban India that was proven immensely successful when it comes to improving urban cleanliness through a spirit of healthy competition.
 
The Minister also revealed the reason to revise the protocol. "Since it is a ranking system, several of our cities, despite doing exceptionally well, were not being recognized appropriately. The Ministry, therefore, devised the Star Rating Protocol for Garbage Free Cities - a comprehensive framework similar to our examination systems where each ward in every city must achieve a certain standard across 24 different components of solid waste management (SWM) and is graded based on overall marks received".
 
He further added, "Our aim is to institutionalize as well as bring consistency and transparency when it comes to SWM. This certification is not only an acknowledgment of the clean status of Urban Local Bodies and strengthened SWM systems but also a mark of trust and reliability akin to universally known standards. Moreover, the performance of cities under the Star Rating Protocol is crucial as it carries significant weightage when it comes to their final assessment in Swachh Survekshan."
 
Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, MoHUA introduced the revised-three stages of the protocol. "To ensure that the Protocol has a SMART framework, we developed a three-stage assessment process. In the first stage, ULBs populate their progress data on the portal along with supporting documents within a particular timeframe. The second stage involves a desktop assessment by a third-party agency selected and appointed by MoHUA. Claims of cities that clear the desktop assessment are then verified through independent field-level observations."
 
In the recent phase of Star Rating Assessment, 1435 cities applied. During the assessments, 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. While 698 cities cleared the desktop assessment, 141 cities have been certified with Star Rating during field assessment. The low number of certifications signifies the rigorous and robust certification mechanism of the protocol.
 
Launching the revised protocol for the Star Rating Framework, Mishra elaborated, “Our endeavor is to constantly revisit and strengthen the framework basis the feedback received from cities. 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+."
 
Further, he added due to the corona crisis, the Ministry had issued detailed guidelines to all States and cities on special cleaning of public places and collection and disposal of bio-medical waste from quarantined households. "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. I am happy to see that the services of sanitation workers are being duly recognized by authorities and citizens alike."
 
"Cities like Ghaziabad have done commendable work in the provision of food and shelter to needy. Technology has been leveraged to provide all essential services to citizens and monitor the status of Quarantined Homes."