Swachch Bharat Abhiyan

Central Rural Sanitation Programme (CRSP), launched in 1986 was the first major structured initiative of cleanliness in India. The objective of that programme was to construct the individual sanitary latrines for the personal use of BPL population. The idea was to improve the quality of the rural people and also to provide privacy and dignity to women.

Thereafter, the concept of sanitation was expanded to include personal hygiene, home sanitation, safe water, garbage disposal, excreta disposal and waste water disposal. With this broader concept of sanitation CRSP was restructured under the name “Total Sanitation Campaign” (TSC) from 1999 during Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government. Its aim was to eradicate open defecation by 2010. It gave strong emphasis on Information, Education, Communication (IEC) and hygiene education for effective behavior change with involvement of PRI’s, NGOs etc.

The UPA Government renamed Total Sanitation Campaign to “Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan” (NBA) with the aim to accelerate sanitation coverage in rural areas to achieve the vision of ‘Nirmal’ Bharat by 2022.

However, even in basic objective of providing households with toilet facility; the achievement on ground has been abysmally low as shown in below table.

The current NDA Government has restructured the existing programmes with renewed strategies in order to make the programme more comprehensive.

Swachch Bharat Abhiyan

The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan or Mission, launched on 2nd of October 2014, is so far the largest programme on sanitation by Indian Government. It has two sub-Missions viz. Swachh Bharat Mission (Rural) and Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban). While rural mission comes under the purview of Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation; the urban mission comes under Ministry of Urban Development.

Key Objectives

The basic objective is to provide sanitation facilities to every family, including toilets, solid and liquid waste disposal systems, village cleanliness, and safe and adequate drinking water supply by 2nd October, 2019. It will be a befitting tribute to the Father of the Nation on his 150th birth anniversary.

Following are the some important objectives of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan:

• To eradicate the system of open defecation in India.
• To convert the insanitary toilets into pour flush toilets.
• To remove the system of manual scavenging.
• To make people aware of healthy sanitation practices by bringing behavioral changes in people.
• To link people with the programmes of sanitation and public health in order to generate public awareness.
• To build up the urban local bodies strong in order to design, execute and operate all systems related to cleanliness.
• To completely start the scientific processing, disposals reuse and recycling the Municipal Solid Waste.
• To provide required environment for the private sectors to get participated in the Capital Expenditure for all the operations and maintenance costs related to the clean campaign.

Key Facts

• Under the programme the Unit cost of the Individual Household Latrine (IHHL) has been enhanced from Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 12,000 so as to provide for water availability, including for storing, hand-washing and cleaning of toilets.
• Central share for IHHLs to be Rs. 9,000 (75 percent) from Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin). The State share to be Rs. 3,000 (25 percent). For North Eastern States, Jammu and Kashmir and Special category States, the Central share will be 10,800 and the State share Rs. 1,200 (90 percent:10 percent). Additional contributions from other sources will be permitted.
• Provision to be included in the Indira Awas Yojana Programme for provision of functional toilets.
• Discontinue the part funding from MGNREGA for the payment of incentives for the construction of IHHLs and pay the entire amount of Government of India share from the Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin).This will help in dealing with the problem of delay of funds in MNREGA.
• Funding for these new initiatives will be through the following:
  Budgetary allocations;
  • Contributions to the Swachh Bharat Kosh (funded via Swachh Bharat Cess)
  • Through commitments under Corporate Social responsibility (CSR)
  • Funding assistance from multilateral sources