New Delhi, Jun 5 (UNI) Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri on Friday said almost all of urban India is today Open Defecation Free (ODF) and scientific processing of solid waste, which stood at a mere 18 per cent at the start of the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U) in 2014, has more than tripled and now stands at 65 per cent.
In commemoration of World Environment Day 2020, Mr Puri launched a series of advisories here at Nirman Bhavan.
The programme titled ‘Saving Biodiversity through Effective Waste Management’ was webcast live and was also attended by Mr Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, MoHUA and Mr V K Jindal, Joint Secretary and National Mission Director, Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U).
The three key advisories released included the ‘Advisory on Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs) for Municipal Solid Waste (MSW)’, ‘Advisory on Landfill Reclamation’ and a ‘Consultative Document (draft) on On-site and Off-site Sewage Management Practices’ prepared by the Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organisation (CPHEEO) under SBM-U.
At the event, the Minister said, 'On this day, we get the chance to reinforce the intrinsic connection between biodiversity conservation and effective waste management. Swachhata and conservation of biodiversity indeed go hand in hand.'
'The documents being released today by my Ministry is an effort to find and facilitate sustainable solutions to some of the key problems hindering holistic sanitation and solid waste management,' Mr Puri said.
The Ministry also released a toolkit for a communication campaign on faecal sludge management titled ‘Malasur- The Demon of Defeca’ which aims to heighten the risk perception of faecal sludge. Conceptualised and designed in support from BBC Media Action, the toolkit has a host of creative outputs in 10 Indian languages along with English.
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