MoHUA launches Swachh Survekshan 2023 under Swachh Bharat Mission Urban 2.0, with the theme of ‘Waste to Wealth’ for Garbage Free Cities

What is the News?

The government has launched the eighth edition of Swachh Survekshan -2023 (SS 2023) under Swachh Bharat Mission Urban 2.0.

About the Swachh Survekshan 2023

Theme: The survey is designed with the theme of ‘Waste to Wealth’ as its driving philosophy.

SS 2023 is curated towards achieving circularity in waste management. The survey would give priority to the principle of 3Rs – Reduce, Recycle and Reuse.

What is Swachh Survekshan?

Swachh Survekshan was introduced in 2016 as a competitive framework to encourage cities to improve the status of urban sanitation while encouraging large scale citizen participation.

It was launched as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, which aimed to make India clean and free of open defecation by 2nd October 2019.  The first survey was undertaken in 2016.

Conducted by:  Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) with Quality Council of India (QCI) as its implementation partner.

Parameters: The cities have been ranked based on three broad parameters — service level progress, citizen’s voice and certification.

What are the new additions to SS2023?

-There is an enhanced level of cleanliness activities undertaken by the cities during the months the survey is conducted. Therefore, in SS 2023, the evaluation will be conducted in 4 phases, instead of 3 phases in earlier editions.

-To align with the theme of SS2023, additional weightage has been given to source segregation of waste, enhancement of waste processing capacity of cities to match the waste generation and reduction of waste going to the dumpsites.

-Indicators have been introduced emphasizing the need for a phased reduction of plastic, plastic waste processing, encouraging waste to wonderful parks and zero waste events.

-Ranking of Wards within the cities is also being promoted through Swachh Survekshan 2023.

-The cities would also be assessed on dedicated indicators on the issues of ‘open urination’ (Yellow Spots) and ‘open spitting’ (Red Spots).

What is the significance of Swachh Survekshan?

Over the years, Swachh Survekshan has emerged as the largest Urban sanitation survey in the world.

The survey which started with only 73 cities in 2016 has now grown to 4355 cities in SS 2022, including 62 Cantonment Boards. It has led to healthy competition among cities to improve their performance on sanitation parameters thereby improving sanitation services delivery to the citizens.

Source: The post is based on the article “MoHUA launches Swachh Survekshan 2023 under Swachh Bharat Mission Urban 2.0, with the theme of ‘Waste to Wealth’ for Garbage Free Cities” published in PIB on 24th May 2022.