Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

Mission To Make India Clean

India has registered a sustained economic growth in the last few years. But it still faces a huge
economic loss due to poor hygiene and sanitation. A recent World Bank report has highlighted that
India loses 6.4% of GDP annually because of this particular reason.

Under the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the
Government of India aims at ‘total sanitation’ by 2019. It means every household in India will have a
toilet by the end of the year 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

Objectives of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

Objectives of the Swachh Bharat Mission are –

 elimination of open defecation, conversion of insanitary toilets to pour flush toilets,

eradication of manual scavenging, 10% collection and scientific processing/disposal,
reuse/recycle of municipal solid waste, to bring about a behavioural change in people
regarding healthy sanitation practices.
 The programme aims to generate awareness among the citizens about sanitation and its
association with health.
 It also calls for strengthening of urban local bodies to design, implement and operate systems
to create conducive environment for private sector participation.
How it is being Managed

This mission to clean India’s cities and villages is estimated to cost around Rs. 62,000
crores. It’s the most celebrated scheme of the recent time which aims to combat dirtiness and
generate awareness among the citizens of India about the importance of sanitation and hygiene.

Millions of people, celebrities, politicians, academic institutions, NGOs, and local community
centres across the country joined this cleanliness initiative of the government by organizing
cleanliness drives across the country. From Bollywood actors to the sportsperson, government
officials to Army men, industrialists to spiritual leaders, all are willingly contributing towards making
India clean.

The Union Ministry of Urban Development is managing the urban component of the SBM,
while the Union Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation is handling the rural component of the
mission. Students of schools are also organizing frequent cleanliness campaigns to spread awareness
about hygiene through plays and other modes.

Historical Perspective:

The Government of India launched the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) with effect from
April 1, 1999. To provide a major fillip to the TSC, the government launched an incentive scheme in
June 2003 in the form of an award for comprehensive sanitation coverage, preservation and protection
of environment and open defecation-free panchayat villages, blocks, and districts namely Nirmal
Gram Puraskar.

The TSC was further renamed as Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA). On October 2, 2014, the
campaign was renamed and launched as Swachh Bharat Abhiyan or Swachh Bharat Abhiyan Mission
(SBM) to fulfil Mahatma Gandhi`s vision of ‘Clean India’.

Emergence of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

However, programmes like the Total Sanitation Campaign and the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan failed to
achieve the desired targets due to planning weaknesses, wastages, and irregularities. According to the
CAG estimation, more than 30 percent of individual household latrines were defunct/non-functional
for reasons like poor quality of construction, incomplete structure, and no-maintenance.

It states that though the conceptual framework keeps changing from supply driven to demand driven
and finally to ‘saturation and convergence’ approach, the lessons learned and experimentations do not
seem to have made much impact on the sanitation status in the country. We need to learn from the
previous mistakes.

With the introduction of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in 2014, the Government restructured the Nirmal
Bharat Abhiyan (NBA) with two sub-Missions: Swachh Bharat Mission (Rural) and Swachh Bharat
Mission (Urban). The focus now is to achieve a clean, defecation-free India by the year 2019.
The Main Objectives of the SBM:

The mission aims to eradicate open defecation by 2019. Prime Minister while launching the
SBM, called for making the goal of Swachh Bharat as a mass movement, with people taking a pledge
to neither litter, nor let others litter.

Citing a World Health Organization estimate that an average of Rs. 6500 per person was lost
in India due to lack of cleanliness and hygiene, the Prime Minister emphasized that a clean India
would make a significant impact on public health. It would safeguard income of the poor, ultimately
contributing to the national economy.

He underlined that sanitation should not be seen as a political tool, but as manifestation of
patriotism and contribution towards nation-building.

The mission aims to eliminate open defecation by constructing toilets for households,
communities; abolishing manual scavenging; ushering in advanced municipal solid waste
management practices; encouraging private sector involvement in the sanitation sector and last but not
the least by bringing about attitudinal change with regard to sanitation.

Menace of the Open Defecation

One of the major causes of lack of cleanliness in the country is open defecation.

It refers to a practice whereby people go out in fields or other open spaces rather than using
the toilets to defecate. This practice is quite rampant in India.

A United Nation (UN) report also said that India was home to the world’s largest population
of people who defecate in the open and around 65,000 tonnes of excreta was added into the
environment each day.

The Open Defecation Free (ODF)

To become Open Defecation Free (ODF) is an uphill task for a country like ours. The age-
old practices and a lack of awareness among people are posing severe challenges to health.

However, after the launch of Swachh Bharat Campaign, 25 states have been declared as
Open Defecation Free till November 2018. Sikkim was the first Indian state which was declared ODF
state under the Swachh Bharat Mission.

In October 2016, Himachal Pradesh was declared Open Defecation Free (ODF) state under
the SBM. After Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh got this status to have toilet for every individual
household. As on November 2018, there were 89 million toilets built since 02 nd October 2014 and
more than 5 lakhs villages were declared Open Defecation Free. There is still a long way to go for the
completion of this campaign and most important thing will be the behavioural change which is very
important for the successful completion of this mission.
Funding of the Swachh Bharat Mission

This mission is one of the leading centrally-sponsored schemes for which cooperation of all
the states is quite important. The SBM receives funds through budgetary allocations, contributions to
the Swachh Bharat Kosh and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). It also receives funding
assistance from the international organisation like the World Bank. The Government of India
introduced Swachh Bharat Cess (SBC) in 2015 which is used for financing and promoting the
Swachh Bharat initiatives.

It is applicable on all taxable services. It is levied, charged, collected and paid to the
Government of India, independent of service tax. It is charged as a separate line item in the invoice.
SBC has been introduced for financing and promoting Swachh Bharat initiatives and became effective
since 15 November 2015 at the rate of 0.5% on all taxable services. SBC is collected in the
Consolidated Fund of India.

The Union Government had announced Swachh Bharat Kosh (SBK) in 2014. Its Governing
Council is chaired by Secretary, the Department of Expenditure, and Ministry of Finance. Secretaries
from several ministries are part of it. Its instruction is to procure Corporate Social Responsibility
(CSR) funds from the corporate sector and philanthropists. It accepts contributions from individuals
also. The Kosh is used to achieve the objective of improving cleanliness levels in rural and urban
areas.

Conclusion

Though people have started to pitch in to help spread the message of ‘Cleanliness is next to
Godliness’, we still have miles to go. The government needs to work on the entire sanitation value
chain including water supply, safe disposal and treatment of waste, and maintenance of infrastructure.

The construction of toilets as well as awareness campaigns needs the backing of the state for regular
monitoring of the toilet use. Not only this, there is a need to engage the community also to address the
age-old practices in the rural areas.

The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has started showing its results in the current times where 25 states have
been already declared Open Defecation Free and efforts are already in progress to make other state
join the club of ODF.

At this juncture, every countryman should take a pledge that he/she will contribute towards making
India clean in the true sense of the term and then only we can pay tribute in real sense to Mahatma
Gandhi on his 150th birth anniversary in 2019

Thank You