There has, in the past, been a general distrust of Government schemes. The principal reason for this is that either the benefits don’t reach the targeted or that the projected parameters are never achieved. However, there are schemes with a difference. The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is arguably the most successful one.

“So long as you do not take the broom and the bucket in your hands, you-cannot make your towns and cities clean” – Mahatma Gandhi

Great efforts of India have presented a unique example before the world about how the nation can be enthused and inspired on the issue of social concern. Today, inspired from this program of India, many countries of the world are planning on this pattern to improve their sanitation conditions.

Highlights:

• 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 free’ in 2019. Toilets in several parts of India have been named “Izzat Ghar”
• Studies have revealed that in every house of an Open Defecation Free village, about Rs 50000 are being saved because the family is saving on the expenditure otherwise being incurred on treatment of various diseases.
• According to a study by the World Health Organization with the implementation of Swachh Bharat Mission, every year we have successfully prevented a large number of children from becoming victims of deadly diseases in rural areas and the situation is continuously improving.
• SBM will result in averting more than 300000 deaths between 2014 and October 2019.
• A recent study by the Indore Municipal Corporation (Jagran, 2017) has found that vector-borne diseased have reduced by 40 per cent due to sanitation interventions under Swachh Bharat Mission.
• In fact the number of patients affected by jaundice, cholera, vomiting, diarrhea, hepatitis and malaria in Indore have reduced a result, the scale of medicines across Indore has dropped which has contributed in controlling healthcare related costs in the city.
• State of Chhattisgarh has reported a dramatic reduction in contamination and incidences of diseases such as diarrhea, typhoid etc., in the last two years.
• There have been wide ranging benefits accruing from the Swachh Bharat Mission for example informal workers have been mainstreamed into the waste management chain across cities, thereby providing them with steady livelihoods.
• Social entrepreneurship and innovations are on the rise with citizens an start-ups getting into this sector for converting waste into value added products (e.g. converting flower and temple waste into agarbattis, discarded tyres into household furniture, recycling solid waste into handicraft items, decoration products/sculptures, attractive cloth/jute bags to replace polythene products etc) producing innovative and cost effective equipment for Solid Waste Management, or creating business models in waste collection, recycling and recovery.

 Women’s participation:

• This ‘people’s movement’ has today transformed into a ‘women’s movement’ with rural women playing a leading role in the programme. We all knew that the dignity of women demanded the privacy of toilet. However, women of India are now stepping beyond their roles as mere beneficiaries of this programme to leaders of it today.
• Women associated with Self Help Groups have made commendable contribution in the cleanliness movement. Environment related cleanliness by undertaking activities related to solid and liquid waste management have been promoted.
• The Ambikapur follows a model of Solid Liquid Resource Management. The same model is being replicated across multiple cities in the country has provided jobs to thousands of Self Help Groups (SHGs) women members, with monthly earnings.
• Women have been championing, the Swachh Bharat Mission like no other group. In the run up to International Women’s Day on 8th March, the Swachh Shakti was celebrated in both 2017 and 2018, with special events to honour women champions who have done exceptional work in the field of rural sanitation.
• Swachh Jeevika Swachh Bihar is again a special campaign launched in July this year, to provide safe sanitation facilities at households of all Didis (members of women’s Self Help Groups). 10 lakh twin pits toilets have already been constructed led by the Jeevika sisters themselves.

TID-BITS:

• 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 developed 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 mohallas, soak pit awareness and solid waste for top performing groups at district, block and state levels.