Swachh Bharat Mission

Swachh India Abhiyan
PM Modi launches Swachh Bharat Mission.
SloganBALAJI towards cleanliness .
CountryIndia
Key peopleParameswaran Iyer, Narendra Modi (Prime Minister)
LaunchedRaj Ghat and
2 October 2014; 10 years ago (2014-10-02)
StatusPhase 1 completed,
phase 2 launched[1]
Websiteswachhbharat.mygov.in

Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, or Clean India Mission is a country-wide campaign initiated by the Government of India on 2 October 2014 to eliminate open defecation and improve solid waste management and to create Open Defecation Free (ODF) villages. The program also aims to increase awareness of menstrual health management.[2] It is a restructured version of the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan which was launched by the Congress in 2009.[3][4]

A formal sanitation programme was first launched in 1954, followed by Central Rural Sanitation Programme in 1986, Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) in 1999 and Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan in 2012.[5][6] Phase 1 of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) lasted until 2 October 2019, and Phase 2 is being implemented between 2020–21 and 2024–25 to help cement the work of Phase 1.[7]

Initiated by the Government of India, the mission aimed to achieve an "open-defecation free" (ODF) India by 2 October 2019, the 150th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi[8] through construction of toilets. An estimated 90 million toilets were built in the period.[9] The objectives of the first phase of the mission also included eradication of manual scavenging, generating awareness and bringing about a behaviour change regarding sanitation practices, and augmentation of capacity at the local level.

The second phase of the mission aims to sustain the open defecation-free status and improve the management of solid and liquid waste, while also working to improve the lives of sanitation workers.[10] The mission is aimed at progressing towards target 6.2 of the Sustainable Development Goals Number 6 established by the United Nations in 2015. By achieving the lowest open defecation-free status in 2019, India achieved its Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6.2 health target in record time, eleven years ahead of the UN SDG target of 31 December 2030.[11]

The campaign's official name is in Hindi. In English, it translates to "Clean India Mission". The campaign was officially launched on 2 October 2014 at Rajghat, New Delhi by the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi. It is India's largest cleanliness mission to date with three million government employees, students and citizens from all parts of India participating in 4,043 cities, towns, and rural communities. At a rally in Champaran, the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi called the campaign Satyagrah se Swachhagrah in reference to Gandhi's Champaran Satyagraha launched on 10 April 1916.[12]

The mission was split into two: rural and urban. In rural areas "SBM - Gramin" was financed and monitored through the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (since converted to the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation under the Ministry of Jal Shakti) whereas "SBM - urban" was overseen by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.[13][14][15][16] The rural division has a five-tier mechanism: central, state, district, block panchayat, and gram panchayat.[2]

The government provided subsidy for the construction of nearly 90 million toilets between 2014 and 2019,[17][8] although some Indians especially in rural areas choose to not use them.[18] The campaign was criticized for using coercive approaches to force people to use toilets.[19] Some people were stopped from defecating in open and threatened with withdrawal from government benefits.[20] The campaign was financed by the Government of India and state governments. The former released $5.8 billion (Rs 40,700 crore) of funds for toilet construction in 700,000 villages.[21][22] The total budget for the rural and urban components was estimated at $28 billion, of which 93 per cent was for construction, with the rest being allocated for behaviour change campaigns and administration.[23][24][25]

In 2022, approximately 157 million people in India, representing about 11% of the total population, were practicing open defecation. This figure included 17% of the rural population (about 154 million) and 0.5% of the urban population (approximately 2.8 million). In comparison, in 2000, around 776 million people, or 73% of the total population, practiced open defecation, including 91% of the rural population (around 701 million) and 25.8% of the urban population (around 75 million), the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) reported. Although there has been significant progress, India still had the largest number of people practicing open defecation, followed by Nigeria and Ethiopia.[26][27]

  1. ^ "Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen) Phase 2 launched with an outlay of Rs 1.4 lakh crore". cnbctv18.com. 4 March 2020. Retrieved 21 December 2020.
  2. ^ a b Suresh, Lavanya (1 April 2023). "Justice and sanitation governance: an enquiry into the implementation of the Swachh Bharat Mission-Rural programme in UP, India". iwaponline.com. Retrieved 10 May 2023.
  3. ^ "Restructuring of the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan into Swachh Bharat Mission". 24 September 2014 – via Business Standard.
  4. ^ Khanna, Pretika (9 December 2015). "Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan failed to achieve its desired targets: CAG". mint. The massive Total Sanitation Campaign launched by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government and carried through by his successor Manmohan Singh failed to achieve its targets and make a dent in India's sanitation status, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) said in a report.
  5. ^ Mridula Sinha & Dr. R.K. Sinha 2016, pp. 21–22.
  6. ^ "Time to clean up your act", Hindustan Times
  7. ^ "Swachh Bharat Mission Phase II guidelines released". downtoearth.org.in. 8 June 2020. Retrieved 30 August 2020.
  8. ^ a b "An Indian village's fight to take the 'poo to the loo'". AFP. 2 October 2018. Archived from the original on 3 October 2018.
  9. ^ "Swachh Bharat Mission(G)- MIS". sbm.gov.in. Retrieved 13 October 2021.
  10. ^ GoI (2020). Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen) Phase 2: Operational guidelines. Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Ministry of Jalshakti.
  11. ^ Gera, Ishaan (15 February 2024). "India performs well on 85 indicators of SDG target; Asia and Pacific to take 32 years more to achieve SDG goals: UNESCAP". The Economic Times. ISSN 0013-0389. Retrieved 28 March 2024.
  12. ^ "Satyagraha to Swachhagrah: Narendra Modi addresses rally in Champaran". Business Standard. 10 April 2018. Archived from the original on 12 April 2018.
  13. ^ "Swachh Bharat Mission - Gramin, Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation". swachhbharatmission.gov.in.
  14. ^ "Swachh Bharat campaign should become mass movement: Narendra Modi". The Economic Times. Retrieved 2 October 2014.
  15. ^ "PM reviews preparations for launch of Mission Swachh Bharat". Retrieved 7 October 2014.
  16. ^ "Swachh Bharat: PM Narendra Modi launches 'Clean India' mission". Zee News. 2 October 2014. Retrieved 2 October 2014.
  17. ^ Suri, Helen Regan, Manveena (6 October 2019). "Half of India couldn't access a toilet 5 years ago. Modi built 110M latrines -- but will people use them?". CNN.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  18. ^ "Changes in open defecation in rural north India: 2014 – 2018 | 231". riceinstitute.org. Retrieved 24 March 2020.
  19. ^ "Swachh Bharat Mission: other name for coercion and deprivation". www.downtoearth.org.in. Retrieved 23 August 2019.
  20. ^ "Despite toilets in place, a quarter of rural population stuck to open defecation". www.down to earth.org.in. 10 January 2019.
  21. ^ "Govt allocates Rs 40,700 crore for waste management in 2 lakh villages under Swacch Bharat Mission". The Economic Times.
  22. ^ "Govt allocates Rs 40,700 crore for waste management in 2 lakh villages under Swacch Bharat Mission". The Times of India. 8 June 2021.
  23. ^ "MDWS Intensifies Efforts with States to Implement Swachh Bharat Mission", Business Standard, 18 March 2016 (press release)
  24. ^ "Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan: Government builds 7.1 lakh toilets in January". timesofindia-economictimes. Archived from the original on 20 February 2015.
  25. ^ Cite error: The named reference wb was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  26. ^ If you are viewing this on a mobile device, it is recommended to open the link in desktop mode for convenience and a complete view. "JMP". washdata.org. Retrieved 11 September 2024.
  27. ^ KASHIWASE, HARUNA (17 November 2023). "World Toilet Day: 420 million people are defecating outdoors". world bank. Retrieved 12 September 2014.