Ambikapur in Chhattisgarh, Rajkot and Surat in Gujarat, Mysuru in Karnataka, Indore in Madhya Pradesh and Navi Mumbai in Maharashtra have got five-star rating for being garbage-free cities. The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has got three star rating while Delhi Cantonment, Vadodara, Rohtak are among ‘one-star garbage free cities’.
Incidentally, some of the five-star rated cities are corona hotspots. According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare data, Surat, Rajkot, Indore, Mumbai (including Navi Mumbai) and Mysore have reported 1127, 80, 2565, 21,385 and 89 confirmed cases of coronavirus so far.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs on Tuesday certified six cities as 5-Star garbage-free cities, 65 cities as 3-Star, and 70 cities as 1-Star cities. According to the ministry, as many as 197 cities applied for 7 star rating and none of them qualified. The cities include Vijayawada, Trupati, Chandigarh, Gandhinagar, Ahemdabad, Karnal, Bhopal, Ujjain, Khargone, Katni, Bhurhanpur, Chhindawar, Singrauli, Thane, Shridi and Jalgaon were among the 65 cities accredited ‘3-Star’ rating.The performance of municipalities of Bihar, West Bengal and North eastern states were not up to the mark.
Chhattisgarh’s small town Ambikapur, having population of less than two lakh, came to limelight last year when the city got second in the Swachh City ranking. According to officials, Ambikapur is the only local body in the country, which runs a ‘garbage café’ for ragpickers which will provide free food in exchange for plastic waste. The concept of this cafe is that people can get their plastic waste weighed and enjoy a warm meal in return. The cafe has been set up by Ambikapur Municipal Corporation (AMC ). Chhattisgarh’s nine cities got three star rating which include Patan, Bilaspur, Bhilai Nagar and Jashpur Nagar.
The NDMC, which got the three star rating, had won the ‘cleanest small city’ award for the second consecutive year under Swachchh Survekshan 2019 in the category includes cities with populations of one to three lakh.
Only 3 per cent of Delhi’s geographical area and population come under the NDMC, but it is considered the seat of political power in India. Mysore is the only city in south India which got five star rating.
Announcing the star rating for garbage free cities, Union Housing and Urban Affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri said that the coronavirus crisis has brought forward the importance of sanitisation along with solid waste management. 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 Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban has played in the last five years to ensure a high degree of cleanliness and sanitation in urban areas, the Minister added.
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.
Puri also launched the revised protocol for the Star Rating of Garbage Free Cities at the event. The protocol has been devised in a holistic manner including components such as the cleanliness of drains & water bodies, plastic waste management, managing construction & demolition waste, etc. which are critical drivers for achieving garbage-free cities. This year 1,435 municipal entities participated in the garbage free ranking competition, finally after several verifications 141 cities have been ranked