Moneycontrol | Women leading 'Garbage Free Cities' movement in the country: Hardeep Puri

Mar 29,2023

Women are leading the 'Garbage Free Cities' movement in the country with as many as four lakh women directly engaged in sanitation and waste management as an enterprise in urban India, Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on March 29.

“In the last two weeks, I have seen numerous pictures of the Swachhata Yatra. It is encouraging to see more than 300 women Self Help Group members travelling to learn various waste management models. Four lakh women are directly engaged in sanitation and waste management as an enterprise in urban India. Through the Swachh Bharat mission, we have not only provided dignity to women, but also concrete livelihood opportunities,” he said while addressing participants of the 'Swachhotsav - 2023: Rally for Garbage Free Cities' in the Capital.

The minister also unveiled the ‘Stories of Change’ compendium, which captures the on-ground successes.

He informed the gathering that more than 300 women Self-Help Group members have travelled across cities to learn various waste management models and congratulated ‘Swachhata Doots’ for being change makers, many of whom are first time travellers and this enriching experience has offered them a platform to see, interact and learn.

‘Swachhotsav - 2023: Rally for Garbage Free Cities’ was organised by MoHUA in collaboration with GIZ, Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection; UNEP and UN Habitat, as part of India’s celebration of the International Day of Zero Waste 2023.

The event saw discussions on good practices in Circularity in Garbage Free Cities, Women and Youth for GFC, Business and Tech for GFC and was attended by over 350 delegates including mayors, commissioners, mission directors, business and tech experts, women and youth leading sanitation, technical institutions, development partners among others.

Speaking about the achievements of the Mission, 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 percent in 2014 to 75 percent today. This has been aided through 100 percent door-to-door waste collection in 97 percent wards and source segregation of waste being practiced by citizens across almost 90 percent wards in all ULBs in the country, he told the gathering.

He expressed confidence that the resolve and determination shown in achieving the targets of SBM-U would be amplified manifold in the second phase of the mission (SBM-U 2.0) where India aims to become Garbage Free.

Speaking about the progress in the (Garbage Free Cities) GFC-Star rating protocol, launched in January 2018 to encourage a competitive, mission-mode spirit among ULBs, he said that the certification has increased from only 56 cities in the first year to 445 cities till date.

“We have now set ourselves the ambitious target of having at least 1,000 3-star Garbage Free Cities by October 2024,” he said.

Manoj Joshi, secretary, MoHUA, also commended the role of women’s leadership in ensuring circularity of waste management and implementing a zero-waste approach turning waste into valuable resources. He said that there was a need to upscale self-help groups to a professional level so as to ensure higher income generation for these groups.

On October 1, 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the second phase of the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban), which envisions making all cities in the country "garbage-free.