The Centre has released ₹1,038.72 crore to urban areas across 30 States and Union Territories so far under the Swachh Bharat Mission, Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said here on Thursday.

Speaking to the media on the completion of a year of the mission, he said the assistance includes ₹103.70 crore for awareness generation activities and ₹25.76 crore for capacity building.

The estimated cost of the initiative in urban areas is ₹66,009 crore.

Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Daman & Diu, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Lakshadweep and Manipur are yet to be released funds.

In urban areas, by 2019, the mission aims to construct 1.04 crore individual household toilets, 5.28 lakh community and public toilet seats and 100 per cent door-to-door collection and processing of municipal solid waste in all the 78,003 wards.

“Based on the reports received till the end of August this year, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Maharashtra and Odisha have been the top 10 performers in construction of individual household toilets. If we take the household toilets sanctioned and under construction, Bihar and Telangana also join the ranks,” said Venkaiah.

With respect to solid waste management, the target for March 2016 is to ensure door-to-door collection in 50 per cent of all urban wards and processing of 35 per cent of the same.

“The success of the mission can’t be immediately quantified. We are a country of 120 crore people.

“While there has been some behavioural change, this mission needs to be further reinforced, for which the government has launched an intensive campaign on September 25, which will continue till October 11,” said the Minister. This will be followed by 11 theme-based campaigns of 15 days each.

Policy changes Venkaiah said the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers will soon bring a proposal before the Cabinet to provide market development assistance on sale of city compost to farmers besides tagging of sale of compost with urea to promote conversion of municipal solid waste to compost.

“The Ministry of Power is in the process of amending the Electricity Act of 2003 to enable mandatory purchase of power generated from municipal solid waste; and the Central Electricity Regulation Commission is working on determination of generic tariff for waste to energy projects to enhance financial viability of waste to energy plants in the country,” the Minister added.

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