New Delhi: Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh on Wednesday (October 25), said that the “Swachhata” campaign has generated awareness about the ‘waste to wealth’ concept. There is now also a better mass understanding of the application of innovation and technology for Recycling and Reuse of Waste materials for productive means, the Union Minister added. The Union Minister was speaking at a press conference after reviewing the progress of Week 3 of the Swachhata Special Campaign 3.0 being implemented in all Government offices of India.
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Union Minister Singh advocated the trinity of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Drones in order to segregate waste intelligently and for swift disposal of resultant materials. He said,
Now, if we can have an Artificial Intelligence driven module which can segregate the solid and liquid waste, then we have the robot which would carry this and load it onto the drone and then the drone would automatically fly and carry it to the respective destination.
Underlining that every bit of garbage is worth its return, the Union Minister said the Department of Science and Technology, Technology Development Board and CSIR recently launched the ‘Recycling on Wheels’ bus, which can generate Waste to Wealth at different spots due to its mobility.
The Minister said the Dehra Dun-based Indian Institute of Petroleum (CSIR-IIP) has jointly developed a Repurposed Used Cooking Oil (RUCO) van that collects used cooking oil and converts it into biofuel.
Union Minister Singh said the Government has earned a total revenue of Rs.776 crore just by disposing of scrap in the three Special Campaigns undertaken by all Government offices across the country in the last three years. A large chunk of this revenue, Rs.176 crore has been earned in the last 20 days of the Special Campaign 3.0 now underway. He said,
So our pace of generating revenue is also increasing. It means now we have learnt the skill of making wealth out of this…That means we are improving on our scale, now we are looking forward to the saturation point.
He thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Swachhata campaign has become a mass movement since he initiated the idea during his first Independence Day address from the ramparts of the Red Fort on 15 August 2014. He further said,
In the first year of the Swachhata campaign more than 4 lakh toilets were constructed, empowering women with ‘Suvidha, Svasthya and Samman’. Second year, the Special Campaign focused on the disposal of lakhs of junk files, which freed up precious office space for productive use, and cleaning e-scrap. And the Special Campaign 3.0 is now focused on wealth generation from waste.
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The Union Minister said nearly 86 lakh sq. ft of office Space has been made available in three weeks of the Special Campaign 3.0. He commended the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), being the nodal agency, while reviewing the progress of Week 3 of Special Campaign 3.0.
Union Minister Singh said massive participation is being witnessed across Ministries/Departments and their fields/areas. He urged Ministries/Departments to adopt a saturation approach in the implementation of the Campaign to cover all outstation offices/defence establishments and PSUs in all parts of the country.
The Progress of Special Campaign 3.0 is monitored on a dedicated portal (https://scdpm.nic.in/) on a daily basis. Regular review meetings are held under the Chairmanship of Secretary, DARPG with nodal officers to review the progress of the campaign. Special Campaign 3.0 concludes on October 31st, 2023 with the beginning of the Evaluation phase in the first week of November.
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(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
NDTV – Dettol have been working towards a clean and healthy India since 2014 via the Banega Swachh India initiative, which is helmed by Campaign Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan. The campaign aims to highlight the inter-dependency of humans and the environment, and of humans on one another with the focus on One Health, One Planet, One Future – Leaving No One Behind. It stresses on the need to take care of, and consider, everyone’s health in India – especially vulnerable communities – the LGBTQ population, indigenous people, India’s different tribes, ethnic and linguistic minorities, people with disabilities, migrants, geographically remote populations, gender and sexual minorities. In wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the need for WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) is reaffirmed as handwashing is one of the ways to prevent Coronavirus infection and other diseases. The campaign will continue to raise awareness on the same along with focussing on the importance of nutrition and healthcare for women and children, fight malnutrition, mental wellbeing, self care, science and health, adolescent health & gender awareness. Along with the health of people, the campaign has realised the need to also take care of the health of the eco-system. Our environment is fragile due to human activity, which is not only over-exploiting available resources, but also generating immense pollution as a result of using and extracting those resources. The imbalance has also led to immense biodiversity loss that has caused one of the biggest threats to human survival – climate change. It has now been described as a “code red for humanity.” The campaign will continue to cover issues like air pollution, waste management, plastic ban, manual scavenging and sanitation workers and menstrual hygiene. Banega Swasth India will also be taking forward the dream of Swasth Bharat, the campaign feels that only a Swachh or clean India where toilets are used and open defecation free (ODF)status achieved as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, can eradicate diseases like diahorrea and the country can become a Swasth or healthy India.
