100 ‘Swachhta cafes’ to come up in Himachal

Tribune News Service

Shimla, October 25

The state government will set up around 100 ‘Swachhta cafes’ with an estimated cost of around Rs 10 crore by 2023 to collect plastic from rag pickers, individuals and urban local bodies.

Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Minister Virender Kanwar said the government aimed to set up ‘Swachhta cafés’ at important locations of the state.

Kanwar said the government was laying special emphasis on cleanliness, women empowerment and promotion of regional cuisines in the hilly state. In this regard, the government had launched a mega public outreach programme in the form of ‘Swachhta café’, under which plastic waste would be purchased from ragpickers and individuals collecting waste from households and urban local bodies at Rs 75 per kg in exchange of food or other eatable items, to motivate people to keep their surroundings clean.

The ‘Swachhta cafés’ will be constructed under Village Haat Scheme where women will also be facilitated to sell medicinal plants, such as giloye, peppermint, neem leave powder, homemade pickles, murabba, wheat flour, pulses, spices and vegetables at reasonable prices. This will create additional income sources for rural women, besides providing these items at reasonable rates to the local residents.

The women running the ‘Swachhta cafés’ will be given training in the hospitality sector to enable them to cook popular traditional cuisines. Around 100 such women would be trained by the hospitality experts during the current financial year, the minister maintained.

A target has been fixed to train around 5,000 people belonging to self-help groups (SHGs) in the next three years in the hospitality sector to run these cafes on professional lines to make them economically viable and to generate interest of local clientele to make the scheme successful.

The first ‘Swachhta café’ was inaugurated at gram panchayat Radiali in Nalagarh area in Solan, while another cafe would be opened at Naggar in Kullu.

Kanwar said the programme aimed at making villages completely free of single-use plastic in the coming years. The entire state would be covered under the scheme in a phased manner.