Swachh Toycathon under Swachh Amrit Mahotsav

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 17^th 2022, Seva Diwas, till 2^ndOct. 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

Toy Industry Boom in India

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