The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) while announcing star-ratings of cities for handling municipal solid waste, also launched the revised protocol for star rating.

“The new protocol will consider ward-wise geo-mapping, monitoring of SWM value chain through interventions like Swachh Nagar App and zone-wise rating in cities with population of over 50 lakh,” said Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, MoHUA.

The Ministry awarded 5-Star rating to six cities for being ‘garbage-free’ including Navi Mumbai and Surat, and Ambikapur (Chhattisgarh), Rajkot (Gujarat), Mysuru (Karnataka) and Indore (Madhya Pradesh).

Hardeep Puri, Minister of State (Independent Charge), MoHUA said, “Five years ago, we introduced Swachh Survekshan (SS), the annual cleanliness survey for urban India. However, since it is a ranking system, several of our cities, despite doing exceptionally well, were not being recognised appropriately.” .

The Ministry, therefore, devised the Star Rating Protocol for Garbage Free Cities - a comprehensive framework where each ward in every city must achieve a certain standard across 24 different components of solid waste management (SWM) and is graded based on overall marks received, he added. Apart from 5-star rating, 65 cities got 3-Stars nd 70 cities 1-Star rating.

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