Swachh Bharat mission

The Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan aims to make India free from open defecation by 2019, the 150th birth anniversary year of Mahatma Gandhi. A Chief Ministers' sub-group has been tasked with finalising a report by June-end on finances needed for the mission, mechanisms for effective implementation and the best practices adopted by states. Six Chief Ministers of non-BJP ruled states skipped a consultative meeting in Chandigarh and sent their representatives instead. Their presence would have lent more weight to the process, but politics can be ignored at this juncture for the more crucial missing links of this national mission.

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The Modi government's flagship campaign is a scaled-up version of the UPA's Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan under which one crore toilets were built on demand in two years. The focus was on construction, not on educating people about the importance of toilets. Though the facility came up, the usage did not go up proportionately. The NDA aims to build 11 crore toilets in five years. Here too, lack of literacy over the use of toilets is not being addressed. The stress is on meeting construction targets. Monitoring the usage of new toilets does form part of the Swachh Bharat guidelines, but there are no figures yet from any such survey. In its absence, the whole exercise loses direction.

A study claims that 40 per cent households with a toilet in five north Indian states have at least one person defecating in the open. Even in urban areas, the sight of the filthy public urinals is enough to dissuade usage. That's the extent of the challenge at hand. Without a behavioural and mindset change, not much will change. Individual efforts have and will continue to make a difference, but when the budget for the mission is well over Rs 1 lakh crore, only a holistic plan can justify the spending. Water, sanitation and waste management cannot be seen in isolation. It also means encouraging the beneficiaries to demand the facility rather than forcing toilets upon them. "Clean India" has a huge resonance, it needs an honest effort.