NEW DELHI: On ‘Good Governance Day’, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), Government of India, launched the ‘Azadi@75 Star Rating Protocol of Garbage Free Cities – Toolkit 2022’. The Star Rating Protocol for Garbage Free Cities (GFC), most important governance tool of waste management, was launched on Friday, December 24.
As per the recently concluded certification exercise for GFC, around 50 per cent of the urban local bodies (ULBs) participated in the activity. A total of 299 cities have been certified among which 9 cities are 5-star, 143 cities are 3-star and 147 cities are 1-star rated. The release of central government funds for the cities has been made conditional on grounds that a ULB should have at least 1-star certification. There is a need to ensure that every ULB participates and gets GFC certified, so that they can avail the funds to achieve the objectives under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan 2.0, as per MoHUA.
Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, MoHUA, Government of India said that the objective of the toolkit is to make things easy and simple to understand. He called upon all the cities of India to participate in the rating process. He also added that MoHUA will handhold all the cities which need guidance or training.