Sunday, 13 Oct, 2024
By: Yash Gupte
The Government of India launched the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) in 2014 with the goal of eradicating open defecation and enhancing solid waste management across the nation. Image Source: IANS
The second phase of the mission aims to sustain the open defecation free status and improve the management of solid and liquid waste, while also working to improve the lives of sanitation workers.
Swachh Bharat Mission, Government of India’s flagship programme for solid waste management and making the country open defecation free, completed 8 years on 2nd October i.e. on the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. The Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) was launched by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 2nd October 2014. Taking into consideration the 8 years of Swachh Bharat Mission, India Tracker takes a look at the solid waste management and the number of open defecation free villages in the country.
Under the mission, all villages, Gram Panchayats, Districts, States and Union Territories in India declared themselves "open-defecation free" (ODF) by 2nd October 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, by constructing over 100 million toilets in rural India. The Government of India launched the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) in 2014 with the goal of eradicating open defecation and enhancing solid waste management across the nation. It is an updated version of the 2009-launched Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan. The SBM’s Phase 1 concluded in October 2019, and Phase 2 is being executed between 2020–2021 and 2024–2025. The mission's goal was to build enough toilets to make India "open-defecation free" (ODF) by 2 October 2019, the 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's birth. Eliminating manual scavenging, raising knowledge of sanitary methods and changing people's behavior, and building capacity locally are the goals of the mission's first phase. The second phase of the mission aims to sustain the open defecation free status and improve the management of solid and liquid waste, while also working to improve the lives of sanitation workers.
The Ministry of Jal Shakti is responsible for funding and overseeing "SBM - Gramin" in rural regions, while the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs is in charge of "SBM - Urban" in urban areas. As noted above, the main primary focus of the mission is to make all the villages in India open defecation free.
The chart below shows the states with highest and lowest Open Defecation Free (ODF) villages.
Source: www.swachhbharatmission.gov.in
A village in which households have access to functional toilet facilities, all Schools/Panchayat Ghars/Aanganwadi Canters have access to functional access to toilet, with separate toilets for men and women and where there is facility of solid waste management or liquid waste management is categorized as ODF plus aspiring village. In the case of ODF plus rising village, it is different from the previous one in only one sense as this category has both- solid waste management facility and liquid waste management facility unlike the ODF plus aspiring village. The ODF plus model village is different from the rising and aspiring village due to the minimal litter, minimal stagnant wastewater and no plastic waste dump in public places. The goal under the programme is that all the villages achieve the ODF model status at the earliest.
Tamil Nadu has performed the best as 11,649 villages out of the 12,525 total villages in the state were counted under the category of ODF plus aspiring villages as of 3rd October 2022. Though the southern state has been ranked as the best, it is one of the states with least number of model villages. On the other hand, though Odisha has been ranked as one of the poor performing states in the country, it has the highest number of model villages as 11,182 villages out of the total 46,785 total villages fall under the category of ODF plus model village. Telangana is one of the best performing states as out of the 12,769 villages, 8579 are under the category of aspiring village and 4159 villages are under the category of ODF plus model village. Apart from Tamil Nadu and Telangana, Gujarat has also performed very well as out of the 18,261 villages in the state, 3638 are aspiring villages, and 596 are rising villages while 160 are model villages. Manipur has performed the worst as out of the 2556 total villages, only four are aspiring villages, none fall under the rising category and only 14 are counted as the model ones.
Though the number of aspiring villages in the country is high, the number of rising villages and model villages is still low. The success of the scheme lies in the maximization of ODF plus model villages in the country.
Data shows that the north-eastern states have not been able to perform very well under the Swachh Bharat Mission and some more serious efforts are required to improve their performance and ensure the reach and successful implementation of the mission in all parts of the country.
