Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

Swachh Bharat was a dream seen by the Mahatma Gandhi regarding which he said that, “Sanitation is more important than Independence”. Unfortunately, India became lack of cleanliness and sanitation even after 67 years of independence. According to a survey, over 26 million people in India defecate in the open. Around 60 percent of Indians do not have access to safe and private toilets. Such overwhelming majority of those without access to sanitation facilities poses a formidable obstacle in the development of the nation.

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA) or Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) was officially launched on 2 October 2014 at Rajghat, New Delhi by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to achieve the dreams of Gandhi Ji’s Clean India. It is India's largest cleanliness drive to date with 3 million government employees, school students, and college students from all parts of India participating in 4,041 statutory cities, towns and associated rural areas. Swachhata Pakhwada started by Prime Minister in April 2016 is a campaign under Swachh Bharat Mission with the objective of bringing a fortnight of intense focus on the issues and practices of Swachhata by engaging GOI Ministries/Departments in their jurisdictions. Government aims for achieving total sanitization and cleanliness by October 2, 2019 under Swacchh Bharat Mission. It is a voluntary exercise and objective is to create awareness, target programmes, invite pledges, spending of CSR etc.

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is expected to cost over ₹620 billion (US$8.6 billion). The government provides an incentive of ₹12,000 (US$170) for each toilet constructed by a below-poverty-line (BPL) family. An amount of ₹90 billion (US$1.3 billion) was allocated for the mission in the 2016 Union budget of India. The World Bank provided a US$11.5 billion loan and $25 million in technical assistance in 2016 for the Swachh Bharat Mission to support India's universal sanitation initiation.

The mission has been implemented to cover all the rural and urban areas of the India under the Ministry of Urban Development and the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation accordingly.

The first cleanliness drive (on 25th of September 2014) of this mission was started by the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi earlier to its launch. This mission has targeted to solve the sanitation problems as well as better waste management all over the India by creating sanitation facilities to all.It is urged by the government to people to spend their only 100 hours of the year towards cleanliness in their surrounding areas or other places of India to really make it a successful campaign. There are various implementation policies and mechanisms for the programme including three important phases such as

• planning phase

• implementation phase

• sustainability phase.

Need of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

Swachh Bharat mission is very necessary to run continuously in India until it gets its goal. It is very essential for the people in India to really get the feeling of physical, mental, social and intellectual well being. It is to make living status advance in India in real means which can be started by bringing all over cleanliness. Below I have mentioned some points proving the urgent need of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in India:

• It is really very essential to eliminate the open defecation in India as well as making available toilets facility to everyone.

• It is needed in India to convert the insanitary toilets into flushing toilets.

• It is necessary in order to eradicate the manual scavenging system.

• It is to implement the proper waste management through the scientific processes, hygienic disposal, reuse, and recycling of the municipal solid wastes.

• It is to bring behavioural changes among Indian people regarding maintenance of personal hygiene and practice of healthy sanitation methods.

• It is to create global awareness among common public living in rural areas and link it to the public health.

Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala are the three states that have been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF) this year. As per government data, as of December 16, over 58% of Indian households have become open defecation free. According to the Union Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Gujarat and Punjab will achieve the ODF status by March 31, 2017.

We can say Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, a nice welcome step to the clean and green India till 2019. As we all heard about the most famous proverb that “Cleanliness is Next to Godliness”, we can say surely that clean India campaign will really bring godliness all over the country in few years if it is followed by the people of India in effective manner. So, the cleanliness activities to warm welcome the godliness have been started but do not need to be ended if we really want godliness in our lives forever. A healthy country and a healthy society need its citizens to be healthy and clean in every walk of life.