Cities to soon get star rating on cleanliness

With the aim to enthuse Indian cities with a spirit of healthy competition, the government has decided to come up with star rating for garbage-free cities, it was announced on Tuesday.

"The new star rating protocol is expected to be formally introduced in the next few weeks," a statement from the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry said.

"Given its potential as a developmental-cum-aspirational tool for cities to incrementally improve their overall cleanliness, while working towards a garbage-free status, this is expected to greatly enthuse the city administrators," the ministry said.

It added that the star rating protocol was different from the Swachh Survekshan ranking survey, as the former would allow multiple cities to be awarded the same star rating.

The star rating protocol was introduced during a national workshop titled "Accelerating Implementation of Urban Missions" organised last week by the ministry for its two missions -- Pradhan Mantri Avaas Yojana and Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban).

The workshop was inaugurated by Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.

--IANS

vv/nir/bg