Plastic waste management, Scientific processing of waste provide huge opportunities for innovation: Hardeep Puri

Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Puri who met the Swachhata Startup Challenge shortlisted startups said the government will provide all support and facilitation to them in finding waste management solutions.

New Delhi: Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Puri reiterated the commitment of the Government to provide all support and facilitation to the start-ups involved in finding solutions towards promoting Swachhata. He said this while interacting with the startups shortlisted under Swachhata Start- up challenge.

Drawing attention towards some of the major cleanliness challenges, the Minister stated that plastic waste management, mechanized solutions to sewer and septic tank cleaning, scientific processing of solid and liquid waste etc. provide huge opportunities to the Startups for innovation and enterprise development.

Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U), MoHUA in collaboration with AFD (Agence Française de Développement) and Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), have launched the Swachhata Startup Challenge on 27th Jan’22 to promote an enabling environment for development startups and entrepreneurs in the waste management sector.

The Swachhata Startup Challenge sought innovative solutions from Startups in the waste management domain under four thematic areas, viz, (i) Social Inclusion, (ii) Zero Dump (Solid Waste Management), (iii) Plastic Waste Management and (iv) Transparency (Digital Enablement).

The challenge aimed to award 10 winning solutions from Startups with the financial support of ₹ 25 Lakh per selected project and 1-year incubation support. Apart from this, eligible startups will also get additional incentives which include up to ₹50 Lakh of follow-on investment from Villgro (implementation partner of the challenge) and upto 100,000 USD worth credits & technology support from technology partner Amazon Web Services.