CONTEXT

•  Even though a large chunk of the work remains to be achieved, we still cannot ignore the fact that the far worse situation has substantially changed with PM Modi’s announcement of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), which triggered a massive transformation in India.
• Today, rural India’s sanitation coverage is over 96 per cent. Over 450 million people have stopped defecating in the open in a short period of four years. Today, India is witnessing a social revolution — a jan andolan — through the construction and use of toilets.
• “WHO lauds India’s commitment to accelerated coverage of safe sanitation services which, assuming 100% coverage is achieved by October 2019, could avert up to 300,000 deaths due to diarrhoeal disease and protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) since the country launched the Swachh Bharat Mission in 2014.”

What triggered this change? Why did the SBM achieve, in just four years, more than all previous sanitation programmes put together?

• Political Push: The most important success factor for the SBM was the fact that sanitation was brought into the national consciousness by none other than the Prime Minister of India, and that too in his first major address to the nation. This established sanitation and cleanliness as central to his vision for India. He gave the nation a time-bound goal to work towards achieving a clean and open defecation free India by October 2, 2019. This injected a sense of urgency in the entire administrative system at the Centre, state and district levels  and made them prioritise a much-neglected problem. To this day, the PM continues to give the SBM significant prominence, and is in fact the chief communicator of the mission.
• Public finance: Triggered by the PM’s firm commitment to the SBM, the finance ministry provided the funds for this ambitious programme with a tight timeline. India has the world’s largest government rural sanitation budget, in excess of $20 billion. The SBM also provides significant financial incentive to socially and economically weaker sections to construct and use toilets, at Rs 12,000 per eligible household.
• Partnerships: SBM has built several strategic partnerships to mainstream sanitation in all sectors. All ministries of the Government of India are working tirelessly to improve sanitation in their respective spheres of influence like schools, hospitals, anganwadis, highways, markets, and railways. Various national and international developmental agencies and corporates have supported the mission. These strategic partnerships have helped the mission spread its learnings and best practices on behaviour-change rapidly, as well as improve implementation across the country.
• People’s participation: SBM has scaled up sanitation by involving all sections of society from filmstars to sportspersons to religious leaders to the common man. The September 15 to October 2, 2018 ‘Swachhata Hi Seva’ campaign kicked off by the PM is a good example of an estimated 150 to 200 million people joining the jan andolan. Today, almost every village has swachhagrahis and millions of volunteers work for swachhata with no official titles. SBM is a classic example of the power of the collective and the extraordinary results that can be achieved when people come together for a common cause.

Challenges that we still face

Data Related Challenges

•  Adequate data on the basis of third-party surveys and evaluation is not available to assist in performance evaluation.
• Whatever data has been recorded reveals a lot of inconsistencies. Accuracy of data is lacking since there is duplication of names and false toilet construction has been reported in many cases.

Quality Concerns

• Quality of toilets being constructed and performance of other initiatives is an issue.
• No training is being undertaken to mobilise all the people involved. Officials of the local government and those responsible for sanitation are not given any training for community mobilization.

Administrative Concerns

• Even though Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) have a major role to play still there is lack of institutional capacity at the grassroots level to deliver sanitation services.
• The high level of political focus that SBA has received has brought along with-it immense performance pressure for essential stakeholders such as district collectors. This pressure has had a negative impact on the officers incharge.
• For the success of this programme a lot of investment in terms of administrative capabilities has to be made. Since the same is lacking, there is inefficiency in the performance and also diversion from the prime objective.

Citizen Engagement

• Since the district collectors and other officers in charge are supposed to work towards targets, they have resorted to penalization of citizens.
• Coercive measures such as disconnecting power supply and withholding supply of rations are being used in case of failure of public to construct toilets.
• Citizens are being fined for not constructing toilets and being forced to take loans from banks since the government gives the money after construction of the toilet.
• There is limited interaction between the government officials and the citizens who need to be made aware of the programme and their roles and responsibilities.

So what is the way forward – The Reforms Strategy?

• Citizens need to be involved in activities to spread awareness and for the purpose of demand creation. Citizen participation has to be increased.
• Not always will a carrot and stick approach work. Hence, the bureaucracy and the government officials involved should not use coercive measures. Rather citizens should be incentivized and motivated.
• Community interaction should be encouraged. Civil society institutions need to be approachable to the people. Such collective action will go a long way in the success of this campaigns. Local government has to be very proactive in their work. Organs of local government need to be strengthened with sufficient powers to work towards the objectives of SBA.