The Centre launched the ‘Swachh Technology Challenge’ under Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0 (SBM-U 2.0), which seeks to harness the entrepreneurial potential of the waste management sector in India and promote an enabling environment for enterprise development.

The ministry of housing and urban affairs (MoHUA) also signed an MoU with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) India to strengthen the waste management sector in India under the overall ambit of SBM-U 2.0.

Swachh Technology Challenge

• Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0, launched on October 1, aims to achieve the vision of ‘Garbage Free Cities’ over the next five years through remediation of legacy dumpsites, construction and demolition waste and plastic waste management. 

• Additionally, sustainable sanitation through faecal sludge and used water management will be a key focus under SBM-U 2.0. 

• Over the years, SBM-U has been encouraging innovations and best practices particularly through Swachh Survekshan, the annual cleanliness survey conducted by the MoHUA.

• This trend has been rising over the years with over 4,000 innovations and best practices having been identified since 2018.

Swachh Technology Challenge, scheduled to run till January 15, 2022, will particularly seek solutions in four thematic categories:

1) Social inclusion

2) Zero dump (solid waste management)

3) Plastic waste management

4) Transparency through digital enablement.

• Designed as a sub-component of the ‘citizen engagement’ component under Swachh Survekshan 2022, the Challenge endeavours to invite solutions not just from startups but also individual entrepreneurs, educational institutions, local businesses, research and development organisations, NGOs, and other citizen groups to help city administration efficiently manage Mission operations.

• To further incentivise the startup ecosystem, MoHUA will also launch a Swachhata Startup Challenge as an extension to the Swachh Technology Challenge in January 2022. Winning solutions from startups under Swachh Technology Challenge will be eligible to participate in the Swachhata Startup Challenge.

MoU with UNDP

• Solid waste management has been a key focus of Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban since its launch in 2014.

• With concerted focus on source segregation and scientific processing of municipal solid waste, the waste processing capacity in India has gone up by nearly four times, from 18 per cent in 2014 to 70 per cent.

• The MoU signed between MoHUA and UNDP India marks the beginning of a collaborative journey to strengthen collection, segregation, recovery and recycling of all kinds of non-biodegradable waste and integrated plastic waste management under SBM-U 2.0.

• Through this MoU, UNDP India will also be facilitating the setting up of 75 Smart Swachhata Kendras across the country, working with local partners and Urban Local Bodies (ULBs). 

• In line with SBM-U 2.0’s core objective of sanitation and waste workers’ welfare, the model will also focus on integrating informal waste pickers — Safai  Saathis — and linking them to various government welfare schemes. 

• With digital technologies playing a critical role in driving Mission outcomes of SBM-U 2.0, the MoHUA-UNDP model will also make use of digital enablers such as Artificial Intelligence and machine learning to digitise the waste flow and streamline activities in the Swachhata Kendras.

Additional read:

Plastic waste management in India

Only about 9 per cent of the total plastic produced globally gets recycled, about 12 per cent is incinerated and energy is recovered, and the rest —  about 79 per cent — gets into land, water, and ocean and pollutes the environment. To address the challenge of the mounting waste crisis in the country, India started setting up its regulatory framework on waste management almost two decades ago.

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