Swach Bharat Abhiyan Challenges and Prospects

Swach Bharat Abhiyan, it means that clean India mission it is a national level campaign launched by the Government of India on 2nd October 2014 to accelerate the efforts to achieve universal sanitation coverage. It is a major step towards the protection of degrading environment. The important objects of the mission include elimination of open defecation, conversion of insanitary toilets to pour flush toilets, eradication of manual scavenging and above all to bring about a behavioral change in people regarding healthy sanitation practices. It also ensures public participation in achieving these objectives. The campaign aims to achieve its objectives on 2019 as a tribute to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150th birth anniversary. The important objective of the SBM is that to improve the level of cleanliness and to make open defecation free. Swach Bharat mission has had the biggest domino effect in the world. Because it has addressed the centuries old practices on open defecation and it has had major health and economic impact. According to reports, 11 states are now open defecation free namely Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Gujarat, Chandigarh, Daman and Diu, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Meghalaya. India, which had sanitation coverage of mere 41.92 per cent in 2014 has increased its coverage to 63.94 per cent, and this improvement is being viewed as a major success of the campaign. More than 3.5 crore toilets have been built under the mission in two years compared 83 lakh toilets built in 10 years between 2001 and 2011 under the Total Sanitation Campaign, as per the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation. Not only is it a sharp increase in the number of toilets built under any national sanitation programme, but the pace of constructing toilets under Swach Bharat has been speedier as well. Nearing three years of completion, the campaign has now also laid its focus on the other aspects of sanitation such as behavioral change, piped water supply to toilets and drainage. However, it has been clearly declared that the campaign is not only the duty of the government but each and every citizen of the country is equally responsible to keep the nation clean or swatch. Ashmi V. G "Swach Bharat Abhiyan: Challenges and Prospects" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-4 | Issue-3 , April 2020, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd30432.pdf