Star rating of garbage-free cities

Government of India announced 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 results were announced by Hardeep S, Puri, Minister of State (I/C) for Housing and Urban Affairs. The revised protocol for the Star Rating Framework was also launched.

The Star Rating Protocol was launched by MoHUA in January 2018. The aim is to institutionalize a mechanism for cities to achieve Garbage Free status and motivate cities to achieve higher degrees of cleanliness.

The 6 5-star rated cities are Ambikapur, Rajkot, Surat, Mysuru, Indore, and Navi Mumbai.

The rating acknowledges the clean status of Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and strengthened Solid Waste Management (SWM) systems.

The performance of the cities under the Star Rating Protocol is crucial as it carries significant weightage when it comes to their final assessment in Swachh Survekshan.

The 5-start rating protocol has been devised to include components such as the cleanliness of drains & water bodies, plastic waste management, managing construction & demolition waste, etc.

Over 1435 cities applied for the Star Rating Assessment. It was based on 1.19 crore citizen feedbacks and over 10 lakh geo-tagged pictures were collected and 5175 solid waste processing plants were visited by 1210 field assessors. A total of 141 cities have been certified with Star Rating during field assessment.

The low number of certifications signifies the rigorous and robust certification mechanism of the protocol.