For Your Knowledge

                                          SWACHH BHARAT MISSION 

Introduction

Launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 02nd, 2014 with an estimated cost of around Rs 62,000 crore, Swachh Bharat Mission aims to cover 1.04 crore households, provide 2.5 lakhs seats of community toilets, 2.6 lakhs seats of public toilets and solid waste management facility for all towns.

How it is being managed

The urban component of the mission is being managed by the Union Ministry of Urban Development. Around three million government employees and school and college students of India participated in the event in its initial phase. The rural component of the mission is being handled by the Union Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation.

Historical Development:

The Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC)

In 1999, the Union Government rolled out the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC). Its objective was to spread awareness among the rural people and generation of demand for sanitary facilities. The scheme was implemented with emphasis on community-led initiatives. The government provided financial incentives to the families which were Below Poverty Line (BPL). The government assistance was also extended for construction of toilets in the primary schools, the ‘Anganwadi’ Centres and the Community Sanitary Complexes (CSC).

The Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA)

The Government of India also launched the Nirmal Gram Puraskar (NGP) to recognise contributions in this field. NGP became a success which prompted the Government to rename CSC as the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA). Its objective was to accelerate the sanitation coverage in the rural areas. This scheme was handled by the Ministry of Rural Development.

Under Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, the government adopted the community-centric strategies. The demand driven approach continued highlighting awareness creation and demand generation for sanitary facilities in houses, schools. It also emphasised on a cleaner environment.

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.

Conclusion

It would be a befitting tribute to the Father of Nation on his 150th Birth Anniversary, if we can improve the levels of cleanliness in the country and make it Open Defecation Free. But the success of Swachh Bharat Mission depends on the society as a whole with every citizen of the country required to contribute towards improving the levels of cleanliness in the country.

For More such article :- https://www.indiacelebrating.com/article/article-on-swachh-bharat-abhiyan/