LUCKNOW, June 22 -- The Uttar Pradesh cabinet on Friday approved the urban green policy aimed at driving sustainable, eco-friendly growth in urban local bodies. Under this, a green city monitoring system will be developed to evaluate and award green star ratings to cities based on their environmental efforts and green infrastructure. The policy will give new shape to cities with development of vertical and rooftop gardens besides Miyawaki forests. The state cabinet by circulation approved the proposal, which was a revolutionary step for environment conservation in accordance with the vision of chief minister Yogi Adityanath. The urban green policy was an important step in the direction of environment conservation and help reduce the impact of climate change, said an official spokesman. The objective of the policy is to boost green initiatives and efforts for sustainable and inclusive development. "This policy will be a game changer and targeted intervention for urban greening," said principal secretary Amrit Abhijat. Under the provisions of the policy, a three-tier strategy would be adopted to boost green initiatives at the level of cities, localities and buildings. Mini dense forests would be developed expeditiously in urban areas through the Miyawaki forest concept. At the same time, green fairs would be organised in cities to boost green initiatives and develop green belts, sponge parks and low emission zones. At the locality level, schemes would be worked out for development of community gardens, pocket parks and adoption of parks. Green building standards would be made mandatory for construction of new buildings with use of environment friendly material, energy saving technology and green roofs would be encouraged. The policy provides for financial assistance with coordination between the centre and the state government. The financial assistance may be procured from Amrut 2.0, national clean air programme, central and state finance commissions. Besides, urban local bodies may mobilise their own resources and also get funds from CSR and other sources. The policy paves way for setting up of green city monitoring framework and the state's cities will be ranked as green +, green ++ and green +++ on the basis of green initiatives, and cities with high rankings will get awards. The policy will be implemented in three phases. In the first phase (2025-2027), it will focus on smart cities and main metropolitan towns. In the second phase (2027-2030), cities with a population of 1 lakh and above will be covered. The policy will be implemented in nagar palikas and nagar panchayats in the third phase after 2030....