Swachh Toycathon- Relevance for UPSC Exam
- GS Paper 2: Governance, Administration and Challenges
- Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
Swachh Toycathon in News
- Recently, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has launched Swachh Toycathon under the National Action Plan for Toys.
- Secretary, MoHUA, Mr. Manoj Joshi launched the Swachh Toycathon by unveiling the online platform on MyGov portal and releasing the toolkit.
Swachh Toycathon
- About: Swachh Toycathon is a competition for new ideas to transform waste into toys.
- Swachh Toycathon competition is being launched under the ‘Swachh Amrit Mahotsav’.
- Mandate: Swachh Toycathon aims to the toy industry environment friendly, and a step towards achieving circularity in toy sector.
- The Swachh Toycathon competition seeks to explore solutions for use of waste in creation or manufacturing of toys.
- Participation: The Swachh Toycathon is a national competition for individuals and groups.
- Themes: It is based on three broad themes-
- FUN & LEARN: It seeks ideas for design and early prototype of toys from waste at home, workplace and surroundings,
- USE & ENJOY: It seeks ideas for design and models of games and play in the park/open spaces made from waste and
- NEW & OLD: It seeks ideas/solutions/working models for circularity in toy industry.
- Assessment Criteria: The assessment criteria will be based on-
- Novelty of Idea
- Design
- Safety
- Usage of Waste Material
- Scalability and Replicability
- Future Waste and climate and social implications.
- Organisers: Swachh Toycathon is being organized by the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs.
- The Center for Creative Learning, IIT Gandhinagar is MoHUA’s Knowledge Partner for the initiative, they will be providing support on aspects of pedagogy and creativity.
What is Swachh Amrit Mahotsav?
- Swachh Amrit Mahotsav is a fortnight of activities to galvanize action around Swachhata from 17th 2022, Seva Diwas, till 2ndOct. 2022, Swachhata Diwas.
India’s Toy Industry
- The Toy Industry in India has historically been import dependent. Lack of raw-material, technology, design capability etc. led to huge imports of Toys and its components.
- In 2018-19, Toys worth USD 371 Mn (Rs. 2960 cr.) were imported into our country. A large proportion of these toys were unsafe, substandard, counterfeit, and cheap.
- To address the import of low-quality and hazardous toys and to enhance domestic manufacturing of toys, several strategic interventions have been taken by government.
- Some key initiatives include increase of Basic Custom Duty from 20% to 60%, implementation of Quality Control Order, mandatory sample testing of imported toys, granting more than 850 BIS licenses to domestic toy manufacturers, development of toy clusters etc.
- Several promotional initiatives including The India Toy Fair 2021, Toycathon 2021, Toy Business League 2022 were conducted to promote indigenous toys to encourage innovation and new-age design to suit global requirements.
Toy Industry Boom in India