ForumIAS announcing GS Foundation Program for UPSC CSE 2025-26 from 19 April. Click Here for more information.
ForumIAS Answer Writing Focus Group (AWFG) for Mains 2024 commencing from 24th June 2024. The Entrance Test for the program will be held on 28th April 2024 at 9 AM. To know more about the program visit: https://forumias.com/blog/awfg2024
What is the News?
Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has released the revised protocol of rating garbage-free cities titled ‘Azadi@75 Star Rating Protocol of Garbage Free Cities- Toolkit 2022′
What is the Star Rating Protocol of Garbage Free Cities?
The Star Rating Protocol was launched by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs in 2018.
Aim: To institutionalize a mechanism for cities to achieve Garbage Free status, and to motivate cities to achieve higher degrees of cleanliness.
Under this protocol, Cities are required to carry out self-assessment and self-verification for achieving 1-star, 3-star, 5-star and 7-star garbage-free ratings. It also ensures the involvement of citizen groups for a transparent system of self-declaration.
Further, the self-declaration is further verified through an independent third party agency appointed by MoHUA.
What are the changes made in the Revised Star Rating Protocol of Garbage Free Cities-Toolkit 2022?
Firstly, the Star Rating Protocol of Garbage Free Cities has been aligned with the priorities of the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban(SBM) 2.0.
Note: Under SBM-U 2.0, a key objective is to make every urban local body at least 3-star Garbage Free, as per the Star Rating protocol.
Secondly, the earlier 25 components/indicators for star rating have now been reduced to 24, of which only 16 indicators are mandatory for 1-star and 3-star levels. The remaining eight indicators are aspirational in nature and will be relevant for 5-star and 7-star aspirants.
Thirdly, higher weightage has been allotted to the door-to-door collection of garbage, source segregation, waste processing and dumpsite remediation.
Fourthly, new components pertaining to IEC, capacity building, revenue from the sale of waste by-products have been added to encourage cities to build an ecosystem to strengthen the waste management system
Fifthly, after seeing the impact star rating certification has made to improve on-ground waste management scenarios of the cities, the release of funds has been made conditional, subject to an urban local body (ULB) achieving at least 1-star certification.
Lastly, the entire process of applying for certification and subsequent assessment has been simplified and made completely digital, paperless.
Source: This post is based on the article ‘MoHUA launches roadmap to make Urban India ‘Garbage Free’ published in PIB on 25th Dec 2021.
