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.
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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.