Star Rating of Garbage Free Cities

• 20 May 2020

Why in News

Recently, the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MOHUA) has announced the results of the Star Rating of Garbage Free Cities for the assessment year 2019-2020.

• A total of six cities have been certified as 5-Star, 65 cities as 3-Star and 70 cities as 1-Star.
• The 5-Star cities include Ambikapur (Chattisgarh), Surat and Rajkot (Gujarat), Indore (Madhya Pradesh) and Navi Mumbai (Maharashtra).

Key Points

• Aim:
  
  • The Star Rating Protocol was launched by the Ministry in 2018 to institutionalize a mechanism for cities to achieve Garbage Free status, and to motivate cities to achieve higher degrees of sustainable cleanliness.
  • It is one of the various initiatives which intends to make Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U) as a successful project.
• Basis:
  
  • It is based on 12 parameters which follow a SMART framework – Single metric, Measurable, Achievable, Rigorous verification mechanism and Targeted towards outcomes.
  • It is a comprehensive framework that assesses cities across 24 different components of Solid Waste Management (SWM) and is graded based on overall marks received.
• Procedure:
  
  • The Star Rating is supported by self-assessment and self-verification for achieving a certain star rating. It also ensures the involvement of citizen groups for a transparent system of self-declaration.
  • Further, the self-declaration is further verified through an independent third party agency appointed by MoHUA.
• Significance:
  
  • The performance of cities under the Star Rating Protocol is crucial as it carries significant weightage for their final assessment in Swachh Survekshan.
    
    • Swachh Survekshan is the annual urban cleanliness survey conducted by the government.
  • 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.
  • The rating protocol is an outcome-based tool that helps MoHUA and other stakeholders to evaluate cities on the basis of this single rating.

Source: PIB