SWACHH BHARAT - 2019: WILL RURAL INDIA BE ODF/SWACHH?

Abstract

Launched on 2nd October 2014, the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) is the Government of India's (GoI) nation-wide flagship program ideated with an objective to advance the country's sanitation agenda. Although many are listed its main aim is to reduce and subsequently eliminate open defecation through the construction of individual, cluster and community toilets and establish reliable mechanisms to monitor the latrine usage. SBM aims to achieve an open defecation free India by 2nd October 2019. It also envisages appropriate Solid and Liquid Waste Management, Information, Education and Communication (IEC) activities, Capacity building of the stakeholders, and Micro-financing of construction of toilets. Several efforts are being made by many agencies as well as the government of India and state governments to attain the target of making entire India open defecation free by 2nd Oct. 2019. Although the programme has separate components for both rural and urban settings, in this we consider the achievements and draw backs of rural villages alone. The capabilities approach of Amartya Sen, synthesised with the New Intuitional Economics is used as the theoretical basis. A district wise analysis of the situation making use of the NFHS 4 data has been carried out in order to explore to what extend the entire country will be able to achieve the targets. This is corroborated with the monitoring information available with the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation for each district as on 30-6-2018 and the same is analysed to explore to what extent it will be possible to make India open defecation free. Studies and analysis carried out by others through secondary sources of information and researches have also been used to elaborate to what extend it will be possible to achieve the target. Achievements and pit faults are looked into and policy suggestions are made as to what corrective action can make rural India ODF at the earliest. Further implications of open defecation particularly among children are also explored making use of the NFHS 4 data, mainly to establish to what extend the nutrition among children are affected/influenced by sanitation, as a measure of the final outcome i.e. sanitation and capabilities. The results of many studies and our own analysis points to the fact that though there are substantial reductions in open defecation it is not possible to achieve fully by the targeted date. The policy conclusions are that there is a dare need to retune the IEC and its implementation in many states, plug the leakages in the system etc. Further many technologies both conventional and old and new exist, diffusion of it among the common man has not taken place or rather it is very weak; even after elapsing two decades of its introduction. Exploitation of such technologies to the fullest extend depending on the local circumstances could possibly ward off many of the fears and achieve full target with optimal sustainability of the programme.