- Tuesday, February 25, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIAN prime minister Narendra Modi on Friday (1) launched Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U) 2.0 and Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) 2.0 at Dr Ambedkar International Centre in New Delhi.
The launches took place on the eve of the 152nd birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
SBM-U 2.0 and AMRUT 2.0 have been designed to realise the aspiration to make all Indian cities ‘garbage free’ and ‘water secure’ as part of the journey towards achieving sustainable development goals by 2030, the prime minister’s office (PMO) said in a statement.
Indian housing and urban affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri, who was also present on the occasion, said, “Swachh Bharat Mission has succeeded not only because of lakhs of toilets or bringing waste processing to 70 per cent but also because PM Modi made this project into a ‘Jan Andolan’.”
According to the PMO, SBM-U 2.0 aims to make all cities ‘garbage free’ and ensure grey and black-water management in all cities other than those covered under AMRUT, make all urban local bodies as open defecation free+ (ODF+) and those with a population of less than one lakh as ODF++, thereby achieving the vision of safe sanitation in urban areas.
The mission will also focus on source segregation of solid waste, utilizing the principles of 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle), scientific processing of all types of municipal solid waste and remediation of legacy dumpsites for effective solid waste management.
The outlay of SBM-U 2.0 is around Rs 1.41 lakh crore.
AMRUT 2.0, on the other hand, aims to provide 100 per cent coverage of water supply to all households in around 4,700 urban local bodies by providing about 2.68 crore tap connections and 100 per cent coverage of sewerage and septage in 500 AMRUT cities by providing around 2.64 crore sewer/ septage connections, which will benefit more than 10.5 crore people in urban areas.
