The Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA) is celebrating the sixth anniversary of Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U) by organising a webinar titled ‘Swachhata Ke 6 Saal, Bemisaal’ on October 2, 2020. The day, which also marks the 151st birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, will focus on celebrating the achievements of the past six years under the Mission along with experience shared by States and cities and partner organisations. Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State, MoHUA will chair the Webinar on occasion along with Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, MoHUA and Kamran Rizvi, Additional Secretary, MoHUA.
Hardeep Singh Puri will release a compendium and a dynamic GIS portal showcasing innovative practices for effective solid waste management practices from across India. Alongside, a document on Response of Indian Cities Towards Covid-19: A Sanitation Perspective prepared by NIUA, ‘Frontline Stories of Resilience: India’s Sanitation Champions’ – a collection of inspirational stories of sanitation workers compiled by the National Faecal Sludge and Septage Management (NFSSM) Alliance and a Toolkit for Safety of Sanitation Workers prepared by Urban Management Centre (UMC) will also be released by the Ministry.
The second half of the session will focus on experience sharing of the past six years by select States and cities and chalking out the next steps towards a Swachhatam Bharat. The event will be an opportunity for all stakeholders to learn from each other and envision the next phase of the Mission.
Since its launch in 2014, Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban has made significant progress in the area of both sanitation and solid waste management. 4,327 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) have been declared ODF so far. This has been made possible through the construction of more than 66 lakhs individual household toilets and over 6 lakhs community/ public toilets, far exceeding the Mission’s targets. The Mission is now focusing on holistic sanitation through its ODF+ and ODF++ protocols with a total of 1,319 cities certified ODF+ and 489 cities certified ODF++ as on date. Additionally, over 59,900 toilets across 2900+ cities have been made live on Google Maps. In the area of solid waste management, 97% of wards have a complete door-to-door collection, 77% of wards have source segregation of waste while 67% of the total waste generated is being processed – a jump of nearly 4 times over 2014 levels of 18% processing. A total of 6 cities (Indore, Ambikapur, Navi Mumbai, Surat, Rajkot and Mysuru) have been rated as 5-star cities, 86 cities as 3-Star and 64 cities as 1-Star, as per MoHUA’s Star Rating Protocol for Garbage Free Cities.
Moreover, from being a government program, the Mission has transformed into a people’s movement, a true ‘Jan Andolan’ with the participation of over 12 crore citizens being recorded in Swachh Survekshan 2020, the last edition of the annual cleanliness survey conducted by MoHUA. The Mission has also laid great emphasis on providing dignified livelihoods to all sanitation workers and informal waste pickers, which is directly in line with Mahatma’s vision of ensuring equality and inclusion for all sections of society. To this end, the Mission has successfully integrated over 84,000 informal waste pickers into the mainstream while over 5.5 lakh sanitation workers have been linked to various welfare schemes under the Government.
Capacity building of officials and staff of ULBs has been an integral part of the Mission. As part of this endeavour, the Ministry, with the help of National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) has conducted over 150 workshops across India witnessing the participation of over 6,000 officials representing over 3,200 ULBs.
Swachh Bharat Mission, the flagship program of the Government of India, was launched by Prime Minister Modi on October 2, 2014, from Rajghat, New Delhi and aimed to achieve the vision of a ‘Clean India’ by October 2 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation. The urban component of the Mission which is being steered by MoHUA had the broad objectives of making urban India open defecation free (ODF) along with modern and scientific waste management through large scale behaviour change among citizens.
(Source: PIB)
