A clean India (Swachh Bharat) would be the best tribute India could pay to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150 birth anniversary in 2019,” said Shri Narendra Modi as he launched the Swachh Bharat Mission at Rajpath in New Delhi. On 2nd October 2014, Swachh Bharat Mission was launched throughout the length and breadth of the country as a national movement.
Components
- The mission covers all rural and urban areas.
- The urban component of the mission is implemented by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, and the rural component by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation.
Objectives
Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) Urban
- Elimination of open defecation
- Conversion of unsanitary toilets to pour flush toilets
- Eradication of manual scavenging
- Municipal solid waste management and
- Bringing about a behavioral change in people regarding healthy sanitation practices.
SBM-U 2.0
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2021 launched the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U) 2.0 along with Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation 2.0.
- It aims to make all cities ‘Garbage Free’. SBM-U 2.0 will ensure grey and black water management in all cities, other than those covered under AMRUT. The mission focuses on source segregation of solid waste.
Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin)
- The SBM(G) was launched on 2nd October 2014. It aimed to ensure cleanliness in rural areas through Solid and Liquid Waste Management activities and make India Open Defecation Free (ODF) in Five Years (2014-2019).
- Having achieved the milestone of an ODF India, the aim now is overall cleanliness (Sampoorn Swachhata) in villages. i.e., sustaining the ODF status and managing solid and liquid waste by 2024-25 and transforming all the villages from ODF to ODF Plus Model.
Assistance
- To achieve this, the government’s assistance was increased from Rs 10,000 per toilet (under the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan of the previous UPA government) to Rs 12,000 under SBM.
- When the mission completed five years in 2021, the government launched SBM 2.0, with a focus on garbage-free cities, faecal sludge, plastic waste, and greywater management.
Achievements so far
- With over 10 crore toilets constructed, PM Modi declared 6 lakh villages open defecation-free on October 2, 2019.
- Urban India, except for cities in West Bengal, was announced as ODF in December 2019 by the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry.
- 66 lakh individual toilets were constructed against the target of 59 lakh, the Ministry said. The Centre also said it released Rs 57,469.22 crore to states and UTs for SBM-G between 2014-2015 and 2018-2019. The Budget for SBM-U was Rs 62,009 crore.
- 5.54 lakh villages and 3,913 cities have been declared as ODF under the second iterations of SBM-G and SBM-U from 2020-21. ODF+ means that besides being ODF, these villages have arrangements for liquid waste management as well.
- For SBM-G 2.0, the Cabinet had cleared spending of Rs 1.40 lakh crore from 2020-21 to 2024-2025, of which Rs 52,497 crore was from the Drinking Water and Sanitation Department. SBM-U 2.0 was approved in 2021, with an allocation of Rs 1.41 lakh crore.
- All 2,400 legacy landfills in cities were to be cleared by 2025-2026. So far, only 30% of the target has been achieved in terms of the area to be cleared, while 41% of the waste remediation goal has been met. The SBM-U dashboard shows 97% of municipal wards have door-to-door collection of waste and 90% of them have 100% segregation at source.
Impact of the mission
- In 2018, the World Health Organisation estimated that 3 lakh deaths due to diarrhea and protein-energy malnutrition would be averted due to the SBM-G from 2014 to October 2019.
- Unsafe sanitation caused an estimated 199 million cases of diarrhea annually before the start of the SBM in 2014. These have been gradually reducing, and will almost be eliminated when universal use of safe sanitation facilities is achieved by October 2019 as per WHO.
PM Address
- Today, on Gandhi Jayanti, I took part in Swachhata-related activities with my young friends. I urge you all to also take part in some or the other such activity during the day and, at the same time, keep strengthening the Swachh Bharat Mission.
- We mark 10 Years Of Swachh Bharat, a momentous collective effort to make India Swachh and ensure improved sanitation facilities.
- I salute all those who have worked to make this movement a success.
- According to him, one of the critical outcomes of the Swachh Bharat Mission has been improving the lives of women.
- He emphasized how the availability of clean toilets has brought relief to women who previously faced significant hardships due to a lack of facilities.