Star Rating Protocol of Garbage Free Cities- Toolkit 2022
30th December, 2021
Figure 1: No Copyright Infringement Intended
Context:
On the eve of “Good Governance Day”, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), Government of India today launched the ‘Azadi@75 Star Rating Protocol of Garbage Free Cities- Toolkit 2022'.
For achieving this vision, a key objective under SBM-U 2.0 is to make every urban local body at least 3-star Garbage Free as per the Star Rating protocol.
About the Initiative:
The star rating protocol was launched by the central government in January 2018 to institutionalize a mechanism for cities to achieve garbage free status leading to a higher degrees of cleanliness.
The protocol includes components such as cleanliness of drains & water bodies, plastic waste management, managing construction & demolition waste which are critical drivers for achieving garbage free cities.
It is one of the various initiatives which intends to make Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U) as a successful project.
Parameters:
It is based on 12 parameters which follow a SMART framework – Single metric, Measurable, Achievable, Rigorous verification mechanism and Targeted towards outcomes.
The star rating conditions have been designed in a way to enable cities to gradually evolve into a model (7-star) city,with progressive improvements in their overall cleanliness.
It is a comprehensive framework that assesses cities across 23 different components of Solid Waste Management (SWM) and is graded based on overall marks received.
Monitoring the Cities
To ensure that the Protocol has a SMART framework, the MoHUA has developed a three-stage assessment process.
In the first stage, ULBs populate their progress data on the portal along with supporting documents within a particular timeframe.
The second stage involves a desktop assessment by a third-party agency selected and appointed by MoHUA.
Claims of cities that clear the desktop assessment are then verified through independent field-level observations in the third stage.
Significance:
The performance of cities under the Star Rating Protocol is crucial as it carries significant weightage for their final assessment in Swachh Survekshan.
It also ensures certain minimum standards of sanitation through a set of prerequisites defined in the framework.
Since the rating is conducted at a city level, it makes the process easier to implement and helps the cities incrementally improve their overall cleanliness.
About SBM-U 2.0 mission
It seeks to make all cities ‘Garbage Free’.
It also seeks to ensure grey and black water management across the cities that are not covered under AMRUT.
Mission will focus on source segregation of solid waste by utilizing the principles of 3Rs that is “Reduce, reuse, recycle”.