As Indian cities move into the 21st century, its leaders are preparing to meet demands posed by the citizens. One of the greatest challenges is management of solid waste. The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) in its September 2000 notification has framed the Municipal Solid Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules, directing complete solid waste management by all municipal bodies within a time frame in the country. However, a decade has passed since then, but the debate is still going on as to how we can make our cities garbage free. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has prioritised Swachh Bharat as one of the prime missions of his Government. The Prime Minister has said that Mahatma Gandhi gave us freedom and in return we should give him a clean India as our tribute to him on his 150th birth anniversary in 2019. As such, the Indians have to work with seriousness to fulfill the target. A road map of Swachh Bharat is a need of the hour. We must know that each Indian produces 450 gm of filth per day posing a big environment problem. We have therefore to act with promptness. Added to this, we must also know that everyday around 18,000 MT of municipal solid waste is generated in India. It needs appropriate disposal if we want to meet our target on clean India in less than five years. The problem of waste disposal is only one side of the story. The amount of waste we produce is the result of our unsustainable lifestyle. We need to improve our present pattern of consumption by encouraging use of renewable products, minimising our waste production and recycling as much as possible. After the Surat plague tragedy and two important cases in the 1990s, the municipal bodies remained under the surveillance of the highest judiciary. As a result, the Municipal Solid Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules, 2000 took birth. If the law was grounded fully then the Swachh Bharat Mission? would not have been not required now. Waste prevention and minimization should be given top priority in any waste management plan. Thus the manufacturers need to design products, which would generate less waste and use recyclable materials. Recyclable material can reduce quantity of waste disposal. Then waste must finally be disposed, with lowest possible threat to human health and environment. The most common practice is to dispose the waste outside the residential areas. The environmental cost of irresponsible and unmethodical waste disposal is high and includes fly, mosquito, rodent breeding, water and air pollution, bad odor, smoke and degradation of land. As population growth in urban areas is projected to grow steadily over the next few decades, the cities need to plan ahead and implement effective measures for reduction of waste generation. Every city must develop priorities in waste management plans and reduce waste generation. Options to reduce waste need to be ranked in a “hierarchy”. The option with municipal bodies is to dispose waste in an environment-friendly way but not to forget resource recovery. The first and most obvious approach would be to avoid creating waste in the first place. Then the waste, which could not be reduced, reused, recycled, prevented and processed (composting, energy production, fuel pallets etc) should be disposed of at scientific based landfill. While designing landfill sites, it is always advisable to consider regional approach. The regional approach will reduce the financial cost and land requirement for waste management. Integrated solutions for waste management problems require public involvement. So the municipal bodies must build interest and develop procedures for involving the public. When the public is involved in programme design, it helps the programmes run smoothly. The municipal bodies need to encourage households, business house and office establishments to keep waste safe and secure. They also need to provide efficient waste collection options with not just one time collection but also with segregated or non-segregated at a time convenient to users with a service fee. Indian cities need to be convinced on economic opportunity of waste management. So that cities will not just be garbage free but also encourage setting up micro entrepreneurs for employment opportunity and poverty alleviation. Some forms of revenue generation models in municipal waste management are available like collection, transportation, composting and waste to energy. Similarly, there are enough scopes available for business development in SWM beyond composting and energy need. At the end of the day, we share responsibility for our environment. Each one of us makes decisions and takes actions, which affects the environment around us. It is up to all of us to tackle the growing waste problem, a problem that has to be solved at local level with linkage to larger management plans so that India fulfills the dreams of our present Prime Minister.