NEW DELHI: Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep S. Puri informed that 1000 cities in India are targeted to become 3-Star Garbage-Free by October 2024. Speaking on the occasion of International Zero Waste Day 2023 in the national capital, he highlighted the progress in the GFC-Star rating protocol, launched in January 2018.
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%. This has been aided through 100% door-to-door waste collection in 97% wards and source segregation of waste being practised by citizens across almost 90% wards in all ULBs in the country.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched Swachh Bharat Mission- Urban 2.0, with the overall vision of creating Garbage-Free Cities (GFC), thereby placing India on a new trajectory of growth towards an ecosystem of holistic sanitation and waste management.
Hardeep Puri lauded the ‘Rally for Garbage-Free Cities’ as a women-led people’s movement, wherein lakhs of citizens have taken on the responsibility of cleaning their streets, neighbourhoods, and parks.
