Swachhta Start-up Challenge

29 Jan 2022 Swachhta Start-up Challenge

Posted at 13:33h in Daily current-affairs by khyati khare 0 Comments

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Recently the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) in partnership with ‘Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade’ (DPIIT) and ‘French Development Agency’ (AFD) under ‘Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0’ under ‘Swachhta Start-up Challenge.

SBM-U 2.0 was launched on 01 October, 2021 to achieve the goal of ‘Garbage Free Cities’ in the next five years.
It focuses on waste source and its segregation, reduction of single-use plastics and air pollution, effectively managing waste from construction and demolition activities and bioremediation of all old dump sites.
Under this mission the waste water will be treated properly before releasing it into the water bodies and the government is trying to prioritize maximum reuse of this water.

This challenge has been launched to encourage innovative start-ups to drive catalytic change in the sanitation and waste management sector.
The challenge invites solutions in four thematic areas, which include (i) social inclusion, (ii) zero dump (solid waste management), (iii) plastic waste management and (iv) transparency through digital enablement.
It aims to promote an enabling environment for enterprise development under SBM-U 2.0.
The French Development Agency (AFD) will provide seed funding of Rs 25 lakh and one year customized support to each of the 10 selected start-ups.
With the spirit of innovation at its core, the start-up space has immense potential to revolutionize India’s waste management sector.
It is in line with self-reliant India and Make in India.

It aims to capitalize on the start-up movement by providing entrepreneurial opportunities to young innovators for socially impactful and marketable business solutions.

This initiative comes at a time when France and the European Union (EU) want to work together with India at the international level to negotiate a global treaty on plastic pollution.
This is also important because today the start-up space is growing rapidly, with India leading the world with over 70 unicorns (crossing the US$1 billion valuation).

On the occasion of World Environment Day (June 5) in 2018, global leaders pledged to “defeat plastic pollution” and eliminate the use of plastic completely.
The Group of Environment Ministers of the G-20 countries agreed to adopt a new implementation framework to tackle the issue of marine plastic waste at the global level.
As per the Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016, every local body should be responsible for setting up infrastructure for segregation, collection, processing and disposal of plastic waste.
The Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rules 2018 introduced the concept of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR).
A new national framework on plastic waste management is being implemented, which will introduce third party audits as part of the monitoring mechanism.
The India Plastics Pact was launched in September 2021 in collaboration with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to set time-bound commitments to reduce plastics from its value chain.