Explanation of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

On October 2, 2014, at Rajghat, New Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi used a broom to clean a road, and the campaign began formally. 

Three million Indian government officials and students from India’s schools and universities took part in the effort, the country’s largest-ever cleaning drive. 

Initially, Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister, nominated nine well-known figures to serve as ambassadors for the campaign. These individuals then appointed nine others, and so on. Since then, it’s been carried on by celebrities from all walks of life.

Explanation of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

Background:

• As assessed by the number of homes with toilets, rural India’s sanitation coverage in 2011 was barely 34%. The number of people defecating in the open in China is the greatest globally, with an astonishing 600 million people doing so. After hearing about India’s drinking and bathing water degradation due to open defecation, the government decided to act.

• SBM drew on previous sanitation efforts where it was successful. Their methods were improved, and a template for district-level action plans was created. Several district collectors and magistrates in West Bengal, Rajasthan, and other states began experimenting in the early 2010s with various strategies for involving residents and panchayats in community organising. 

Swachhagrahis were recruited, trained, and released on a schedule. Sanitation monies were used to cover their salaries. As a result of these efforts, states with solid panchayats saw an increase in the number of people using the built facilities. There was little progress in other states beyond the construction of toilets.

Swachh Bharat Mission:

• Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) is a government-wide effort launched in 2014 by the Indian government to eliminate open defecation and improve solid waste management in the country’s urban areas. It’s a revamped version of the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, launched in 2009 but didn’t meet its goals.

• Phase 1 of the Swachh Bharat Mission was completed in October of this year. Between 2020 and 2024–25, Phase 2 is being performed to assist in consolidating the work done in Phase 1.

• The Indian government launched the campaign to eliminate open defecation (ODF) by October 2, 2019, the 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth. The period saw the construction of an estimated 89.9 million toilets. In addition to eliminating manual scavenging, raising knowledge about sanitation techniques, changing people’s attitudes about them, and building local capacity were part of the mission’s initial goals.

• As part of the mission’s second phase, efforts will be made to keep the area free of open defecation while also enhancing the management of solid and liquid waste. The mission’s goal is to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals Number 6 target 6.2, which was established in 2015.

• Hindi is the official language of the campaign. To say it in English, “Clean India Mission”, would be a good translation. The campaign was officially inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 2, 2014, at Rajghat, New Delhi. Government students and employees from all over India are taking part in the country’s largest-ever clean-up drive.

• The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’s logo represents Mahatma Gandhi’s dream of a Clean India. The logo features Gandhi’s spectacles, with spectacles in the National Tricolour.

• The cleanliness slogan for SBM is ‘Ek Kadam Swachhata Ki Aur’.

Development:

• There have been more than 100 million individual household level toilets built in rural areas, and 6 million in urban areas, according to the dashboards kept by the various ministries. More than 6 million public and communal toilets have also been built in urban areas during the past few decades. Thus, 4,234 cities and more than 600,000 villages have declared themselves open defecation-free nationwide (ODF).

• Cities have achieved 100% door-to-door collection of solid garbage, and approximately 65,000 wards have implemented 100% source segregation of trash at their curbsides. 65 per cent of the almost 150 thousand metric tonnes of waste generated in metropolitan areas are being treated.

Conclusion:

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’s mission is one of India’s most well-known and well-recognised efforts. To honour Mahatma Gandhi’s goal of a clean India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched this campaign on October 2, 2014. The primary purpose of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is to raise public awareness about the significance of cleanliness.

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’s goal is to ensure that every citizen of India has access to safe and sufficient drinking water, toilets, and waste disposal systems for both solid and liquid waste.