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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Behavioural Economics and Swachh Bharat Mission:

• The Economic Survey 2019 has drawn on Nobel Laureate Richard Thaler’s Behavioural Economics Theory to lay out what it describes as an “ambitious agenda” for behaviour change that will bring in social change, which in turn, will help India transit to a $5 trillion economy by 2024-25.
• Given our rich cultural and spiritual heritage, social norms play a very important role in shaping the behaviour of each one of us.
• Behavioural economics provides the necessary tools and principles to not only understand how norms affect behaviour, but also to utilize these norms to effect behavioural change.
• Behavioural economics tells us that even if people are truly interested in SBM; their actions may differ from their intent as they need to be moved to action with a gentle nudge.
• Nudge policies gently steer people towards desirable behaviour while preserving their liberty to choose” and the government was planning to go ahead with the programmes to usher social change.
• It does not talk about penalizing people if they do not behave in a particular manner, rather it encourages them to make desirable decisions.
• It believes that Humans are not-so-rational and often need encouragement or intervention — a nudge — to get going and do what’s best for the country or society at large.

Success of SBM so far:

• The major finding of this analysis was that all these health indicators improved significantly in both groups after the implementation of SBM. (ES-2019)
• Five hundred and eighty four districts, 5,840 blocks, 244,687 gram panchayats and 541,433 villages are open defecation free (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.
• SBM had resulted in the improvement of key primary health indicators–diarrhoea deaths among children less than five years had reduced significantly in the past four years. (ES-2019)
• Around 2% of rural India has got individual household latrines (IHHL) coverage in the last four years under SBM, which has had significant impact on health. For example, an estimated 140,000 deaths were reported due to diarrhoeal diseases in 2014. This has declined to about 50,000 deaths in 2017-2018. While diarrhoea accounted for 11% deaths of children under five in 2013, an independent survey claims it is around 8.6% now. (ES-2019)
• Districts with low IHHL coverage suffered more from diarrhoea, malaria, still births and low birth weight, when compared to districts with high IHHL coverage—indicating that lack of sanitation and hygiene are the primary reasons for these health problems. (ES-2019)
• 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 Swachhata mission that was launched to inculcate cleanliness values and personal hygiene amongst children.

Other instances of Behavioural Economics at play:

• Among the successful programmes to introduce behavioural change was the Ujjwala scheme, which sought to move from incandescent to LED bulbs to promote energy efficiency, among other benefits.
• Another example was the subsidy “Give it Up” campaign, under which the government encouraged “above poverty line” households to voluntarily surrender their LPG subsidies. For every household that contributed, a below poverty level household was promised a gas connection.

Way Forward:

• 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. Going forward, the Behavioural economics theory can be applied to bring about other social changes too like reducing tax evasion, reducing corruption etc.

Case Study of Behavioural Changes:

• Patakpur village in Unnao, UttarPradesh:
• A technique of behavioural change called community led total sanitation (CLTS) came in handy. World Vision India, a non-profit organisation, began working in the district to raise awareness.
• The technique helps shift the focus just acquiring the sanitation hardware to creation of open-defecation free villages. The onus of ensuring that all families have household toilets rests with the community. It integrates hygiene and health, keeping the community’s ownership sustained.
• They used rangoli (colored powder) to draw a map of our village to explain how the faeces gets into our water sources, contaminating it. It took a while, but they were eventually convinced that their homes wouldn’t become impure with toilets. Rather, not having one would make the village dirty and impure.
• Indore’s ‘Roko And Toko’ Push To Stop Open Defecation:
• Under this unique initiative take up by Indore’s civic body, ‘dibba gangs’ have been created to ‘roko aur toko’ those who defecate in the open. These ‘gangs’, mostly made up of schoolchildren, have taken to spreading the message by beating metal boxes loudly whenever they come across anyone defecating in the open.
• The ‘gang members’ can also impose a fine of ?100 on anyone found defecating or urinating in the open. This initiative is successful since it involves members of the very community it is seeking to change.