Swachh Bharat Abhiyan “Clean India Mission” was launched on 2nd October 2014 by the PM of India, Narendra Modi, keeping in mind the vision of Mahatma Gandhi of a clean country. Modi ji received the award of “Global Goalkeeper” for the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan initiative from the Gates Foundation in New York on September 25, 2019. This campaign holds a lot of importance and was very popular in the history of India. The Abhiyan covers all rural and urban areas. The campaigns under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan are Swachhta Pakhwada, Plastic se Raksha, Swachhta hi Seva and Swachhta Shramdaan.
The Objective of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan:
The objective of the mission is to bring awareness regarding cleanliness and its importance among people across the country. It aims at providing safe and adequate drinking water, solid and liquid waste disposal systems, and toilets and focuses on the cleanliness of villages, towns and urban areas. Complete negation to open defecation in statutory towns.
Urban Swachh Bharat Mission 1.0:
The Ministry of Urban Development looks after the urban component of the mission. The mission is supposed to cover 1.04 crore households and provide 2.5 lakh community toilet seats and 2.6 lakh public toilet seats.
There are 6 parts under this mission- Individual household toilets, Community toilets, Public toilets, Municipal Solid Waste Management, Information and Education Communication (IEC) and Public Awareness and Capacity Building.
Urban Swachh Bharat Mission 2.0:
The goal of the mission is to make all the cities garbage-free (from the present 70%) and achieve safe sanitation in urban areas. By taking into account the principle of 3R’s i.e. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, to segregate the solid waste from the source only.
Rural Swachh Bharat Mission:
Another name of this mission is Swachh Bharat Gramin. The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation looks after the rural component of the mission. The goal of this mission is to make village panchayats open defecation free latest by 2nd October 2019. There should also be the availability of Anganwadi toilets, toilets in schools and community toilets.
Achievements of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan:
A lot of awareness programs regarding the use of toilets resulted in the awakening of rural people and they started using toilets to a great extent than before. Reports of the year 2019 showed that the number of open defecation by the public has decreased to 100 million as compared to 600 million people in 2014. There was a drastic shift in the numbers. As a result, 5,20,000 villages, 530 Districts and 25 States and Union Territories are open defecations free. Even people believed that their surroundings, streets and roads have become cleaner due to Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Sanitation coverage has also increased considerably from 39% in October 2014 to 98% in just four years of time. Dumped waste which can be seen on the streets prior to 2022 got almost cleared due to the vehicle facility that collects the garbage from houses itself. Earlier, there was no separation of bio-degradable and non-biodegradable waste. But now it reaches their respective treatment plants and no dump can be seen on the roads or in the public places.
Drawbacks of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan:
More than 50% of the government health centres are without staff toilets in rural areas. These are the glaring figures of 10 States and 3 UTs. The state of Telangana has around 4,744 sub-centres in rural areas out of which none has a staff toilet. Efforts were made to provide portable toilets but it is unclean and stained therefore, people tend to avoid going in it. Most illiterate people still defecate openly and they are still unaware of the benefits of Swachh Bharat. Dustbins are not kept at all the public places and even if they exist, they are not emptied on daily basis. The door-to-door service of the garbage collector is there but it does not stop at every house for garbage collection and asks for money as well on various occasions. Even the supply of water in toilets is not adequate.
Related Frequently Asked Questions with Answers:
Q1. When was Swachh Bharat Abhiyan launched?
Answer– Swachh Bharat Abhiyan “Clean India Mission” was launched on 2nd October 2014 by the PM of India, Narendra Modi, keeping in mind the vision of Mahatma Gandhi of a clean country.
Q2. What is the objective of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan?
Answer– The objective of the mission is to bring awareness regarding cleanliness and its importance among people across the country. It aims at providing safe and adequate drinking water, solid and liquid waste disposal systems, and toilets and focuses on the cleanliness of villages, towns and urban areas.
Q3. What is Rural Swachh Bharat Mission?
Answer– Another name for this mission is Swachh Bharat Gramin. The goal of this mission is to make village panchayats open defecation free latest by 2nd October 2019. There should also be the availability of Anganwadi toilets, toilets in schools and community toilets.
Q4. List the achievements of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
Answer: A lot of awareness programs regarding the use of toilets resulted in the awakening of rural people and they started using toilets to a great extent than before. Reports of the year 2019 showed that the number of open defecation by the public has decreased to 100 million as compared to 600 million people in 2014. There was a drastic shift in the numbers. As a result, 5,20,000 villages, 530 Districts and 25 States and Union Territories are open defecations free. Even people believed that their surroundings, streets and roads have become cleaner due to Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Sanitation coverage has also increased considerably from 39% in October 2014 to 98% in just four years of time. Dumped waste which can be seen on the streets prior to 2022 got almost cleared due to the vehicle facility that collects the garbage from houses itself. Earlier, there was no separation of bio-degradable and non-biodegradable waste. But now it reaches in their respective treatment plants and no dump can be seen on the roads or in the public places.
Q5. Mention the drawbacks of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
Answer: More than 50% of the government health centres are without staff toilets in rural areas. These are the glaring figures of 10 states and 3 UTs. The state of Telangana has around 4,744 sub-centres in rural areas out of which none has a staff toilet. Efforts were made to provide portable toilets but it is unclean and stained therefore, people tend to avoid going in it. Most illiterate people still defecate openly and they are still unaware of the benefits of Swachh Bharat. Dustbins are not kept at all the public places and even if they exist, they are not emptied on daily basis. The door-to-door service of the garbage collectors is there but it does not stop at every house for garbage collection and asks for money as well on various occasions. Even the supply of water in toilets is not adequate.