Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) is perhaps the largest behaviour change campaign ever, aims to make India a clean nation. The mission will cover all rural and urban areas. The World Health Organization (WHO) believes that SBM could prevent about 300,000 deaths due to water borne diseases assuming we achieve 100 per cent coverage by October 2019.

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Achievements of SBM so far:

• Five hundred and eighty four districts, 5,840 blocks, 244,687 gram panchayats and 541,433 villages are open defecation free (ODF).
• As of September 2018, the sanitation coverage of India is upwards of 93 per cent and over 465,000 villages have been declared ODF.
• Towards the end of 2017, an independent verification agency (IVA) conducted the National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey (NARSS), and found that 93.4 per cent people who had toilets, used them regularly. NARSS also re- confirmed the ODF status of 95.6 per cent of the villages that had been verified ODF by the state governments.
• Since October 2014, 91.5 million toilets have been constructed and 154.3 million rural households have toilets now.
• IHHL (individual household latrine application) coverage in all states is in excess of 95 per cent, except Goa and Odisha.
• Over the last four years, a cadre of 500,000 swachhagrahis has been created who have triggered lakhs of villages to become ODF.
• The foot-soldiers have helped in geo-tagging toilets, verifying household behaviour, converting old toilets and retro-fitting them, engaging in other forms of cleanliness.
• Bal Swatchata mission that was launched to inculcate cleanliness values and personal hygiene amongst children. This would go a long way.

However, some lacunae are still present.

• The key reason for this is that basic latrines that need to be emptied out manually or pumped by simple machines are unacceptable to higher caste Hindus.
• It is considered polluting to the individual and the home, and historically associated with untouchability. So people rather defecate in open than having a toilet at home.
• There are serious problems, like disposal of faecal matter, quality and maintenance of toilets, and inappropriate technology
• Adoption of twin-pit toilets in rural areas is still inadequate.
• Centre has literally forgotten to spend the money earmarked to promote the use of toilets, a concern raised in the State of India’s Environment in Figure: 2018.
• Centre has also failed to exhaust its budget for Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin. This, despite the fact, that the budget for the scheme has seen a dipover the past year
• States like Odisha, Goa, Tripura, Telangana are still lacking in IHHL (individual household latrine application) coverage.
• Simple on-ground verification of numbers uploaded on the MDWS website in a few areas found that many of the toilets claimed may not actually exist on the ground. This was revealed when organizations working in those areas went to provide the communities where such toilets were built information on post-construction usage and instead found the toilets missing. This raises questions on the efficacy of the SBM’s monitoring systems.
• Standing committee has also raised questions over the construction quality of toilets and said that the government is counting non-functional toilets, leading to inflated data.
• City drains are still cleaned by manual scavengers leading to violation of rule of law and death of many scavengers..
• Sanitation coverage figures seemed to be more on paper but the actual progress at the ground level is very lethargic. Behavioural change is still a distant reality.

Way Forward:

• Parliamentary Committee recommends the government to review its data time to time and delete the number of defunct toilets from the list to have a real picture of constructed and functional toilets in the country.
• Deeply entrenched cultural contexts must be taken into account for successful policy outcomes. India needs to change perceptions of ritual purity through education and awareness in rural areas. This can be done by investing in sewage systems.
• Enabling local governments to construct sewage systems will solve the purity issue.
• A toilet that flushes away human waste into the sewage and waste management system solves the problem. If there is a functional sewage system, it is relatively low cost for households to build a toilet in every home that is connected to the sewage system.
• Developing proper sewage system in village would also have wider impact with water not stagnating any more, lesser vector borne diseases etc so the wider objective of sanitation will be achieved.
• Modernising the sewer lines and septic tanks and investing money and energy on smart techniques of sanitation
• Also it would not put stress on manual scavenging and this occupation can slowly fade away giving sense of dignity and equality to the most vulnerable sections.
• Mohalla toilets: Villages have very small houses and much clustered places where there is no place to construct toilets. The ideal solution is to have mohalla toilets designated to each house where people will keep their toilet clean by seeing others. One advantage is that when the toilets are outside the home, there will be a peer pressure to keep it clean.
• There should be a proper database about what are the requirements in a particular area because we cannot force a toilet in a house where there is no place.
• For India constructing toilets is like a social work and not a development work. Once it is seen as a development work with country’s image, then the thrust will come and the people will realise how important it is and we should not lag behind other countries.
• Governmental Initiatives of Swachhata Pakwada Campaigns should be promoted to raise awareness of sanitation and hygiene. Adequate Budgetary Allocation should be given to construct twin-pit toilets at villages, public toilets etc.
• Teach them young: Children must be taught the importance of Sanitation and hygiene. Initiatives like Bal Swachhata Mission, Swachh Vidyalaya Abhiyan are pushing forward the objective.
• Competition raising initiatives like Swachha Survekshan Abhiyan will help in boosting the spirit of cities and towns to improve the ODF status.
• In places of water scarcity, trains etc. use of bio-toilets can be promoted.
• Technology like mini-jetting machines, robots to clean the clogged pits as done in Hyderabad and Trivandrum should be emulated in other places to curb manual scavenging.
• Swachhata Doots, NGOs and CSOs must be involved at the grassroots level to achieve 100% ODF by October 2nd, 2019.

Conclusion:

                The success of the Swachh Bharat Mission is linked to the participation of the people. It depends on people changing their attitudes towards cleanliness, building and using toilets, and maintaining personal hygiene among other things. This means creating a ‘behavioural change’ in an individual is critical to help break old habits and norms.