Swachh Bharat Abhiyan: A People's Movement.

Social Issues Clean India

In the history of Independent India “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan” have become the first government programme which is snatched by the people to make it a “People’sMovement”.
The target of this programme is to make India open defection free by 2^nd October 2019 i.e. the 150^th anniversary of father of Nation MahatmaGandhi. To achieve the same first-time focus was shifted towards behavioral change in addition to building toilets.

When the scheme was announced, the rural sanitation coverage of India was 39%. After four years of the scheme, 39 per cent rural sanitation coverage has increased to a phenomenal 92 per cent.
Rural India have crossed the mark of over 90% sanitation coverage as around 8.2 crore toilets have been built since the launch of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.4.2 lakh Villages, 434 districts and 19 states have been declared open defection free.
With rural road, rural electrification, rural Awas Yojana, toilets and a cooking gas connection with food grain provided at a modest cost, the quality of life of India’s rural poor will get a quantum jump.
Additionally, when the Ashman Bharat, which provides up to Rs. 5 lakhs per family per year as hospitalisation expense, is fully implemented, this will change the quality of life of India’s rural populations.

The ‘people’ movement’ has today transformed into a ‘women’s movement’ withrural women playing a leading role in the programme.
Women of India are now stepping beyond their roles as mere beneficiaries of this programme to leaders of it today. For example, construction of toilets has always been a male bastion. In many States, however, thousands of rural women have been trained as masons and, with the assistance of Self-Help Groups, are now becoming the primary force in driving a State to be declared free from open defecation.
The hygiene in the utilization of the toilet is also a preventive healthcare scheme. Global experts believe that the SBM will have saved over three lakh lives in the country by the time we become ‘open-defecation fee’ in 2019. Toilets in several parts of India have been named “Izzat Ghar’.

Punjab is the first state to launch an ODF sustainability App under its’ My Village My Pride’ campaign. The sustainability App is one of its kind, to cover all parameters related to sanitation as well as sustainability.
My Village, My Pride campaign also features various competitions between villages – ODF awareness, Morning Nigrani, Cleanliness drive, women mohalls, soak pit awareness, and solid waste segregation.

In an open defecation free village, each family saves over Rs 50,000 per year on account of avoided medical costs, time saving, lives saved. (UNICEF study, 2017).