Shri Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), during his interaction with the Chief Secretary/Principal Secretary/ senior officials of the States of Himachal Pradesh & Uttarakhand last month emphasized that the States should take proactive steps to prepare the cities for obtaining GFC certification and requested the States to see that all their ULBs improve their status to ODF+, ODF++ and also strive to achieve 3 Star GFC status for half the cities by 2022.
The State of Himachal Pradesh, during the interaction, informed that the State has exceeded its target of 876 CT/PT seats by constructing 1,567 seats. Uttarakhand has constructed 20,750(75%) IHHLs and 4,642 CT/PT seats against a target of 2,611 seats. The States were requested to achieve the IHHL targets expeditiously. Himachal Pradesh has informed that 369.46 TPD (98%) of the waste is processed while Uttarakhand has informed that 901.45 TPD of the waste generated is processed. States were advised to ensure that MIS should be updated regularly.
Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand informed that they have achieved 100% door-to-door collection of solid waste. In Himachal Pradesh source segregation of waste is being practised in 100 % of the wards while in Uttarakhand, it is in 65%of the wards. Secretary, MoHUA requested Uttarakhand to ensure that 100% source segregation is achieved in the State expeditiously as this would bring down the processing costs of waste.
Secretary, MoHUA informed that the Ambikapur Model being implemented by the Govt. of Chattisgarh is the classic example of source segregation resulting in the value increase. He advised the State Government to depute the team of municipal functionaries including rag pickers to Ambikapur.
Explaining the contours of the changes in the Swachh Survekshan, 2021 Secretary, MoHUA stated that the new prize will be called ‘PrerakDauurSamman’. Qualifying criteria for this award will be based on segregation of waste, processing capacity for wet waste, recycling of waste, recycling of Construction & Demolition waste, percentage of waste going into landfills and sanitation status of cities and the ranking will be ‘Divya’, ‘Anupam’, ‘Ujjwal’, ‘Udit’ and ‘Arohi’. He said that cleanliness besides changing the perception of the city as to how it manages waste also makes it beautiful and asked the States to make vigorous efforts in this direction. Secretary (MoHUA) suggested that the two states/UT should at least aim for Ujjwal (Silver).
The States gave an account of the efforts being made by them under the Mission including scientific waste processing. They assured that all efforts would be made to improve the performance of the States. Secretary, MoHUA appreciated the efforts of the States in improving the performance under the Mission. This will change the perception of the people towards cities which in turn will bring the economic opportunities to the cities. He mentioned that segregation of waste by the public is the key to cleanliness and prosperity and cited the example of the Indore city where a Bio-Methnation plant is being set up which would pay the municipality for the wet waste procured from it. He suggested that green/wet waste be segregated and composted in homes/hotels/parks/colleges and institutions and used locally. He requested the States/UT to fix targets and work with the cities for achieving them.