Very important article for Indian Citizens in general & Civil Service Aspirants In particular by Harshal. Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan: Clean India Addressing from the ramparts of Red Fort on Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed the importance of total sanitation and aimed at building clean and hygienic India by 2019. To achieve the goal, he launched Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan to commemorate 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhiji. In discussions between Gandhiji and one of his architect friends Herman Kallenbach, Gandhiji had said For me sanitation is more important than independence. We have to bring in social transformation in which people interact with sanitation facilities as more of a community convenient point. Above statement itself justifies why total sanitation is of prime importance to India. According to United Nations Sanitation Report, 665 million Indian population still lacks in access to toilets. Also, if we calculate economic impact of poor sanitation facilities, according to World Banks Water and Sanitation Programme Report, it is about Rs. 2.4 trillion(6% of Indias GDP in 2006). To overcome poor sanitation,India witnessed several efforts in past since 1986. In 1986, Central Rural Sanitation Programme was launched. In 1999, Total Sanitation Campaign was started which was later converged with Indira Awas Yojana. Nirmal Bharat Abhiyaan was brought in 2012 which was converged with Mahatma Gandhiji National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Needless to say, all the above sanitation drives failed to achieve the common goal of ensuring Swacch Bharat. In light of latest Nirmal Bharat Abhiyaan(NBA), lets ponder over some different and important points of Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan(SBA). 1. SBA keeps Gram Panchayats as basic unit of delivery in addition with roping in Corporate Houses, NGOs and volunteers(Swachhata Doot) to help Panchayats achieve 100% sanitation. Corporates will help Panchayats directly or through by helping them build Community Sanitary Complexes(CSCs). 2. Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) will be introduced tasked with sourcing of funds from government and non government sources(including funds from Corporate Social Responsibility). 3. As NBS was linked to MGNREGS, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation(nodal to implement SBA), is of the opinion that SBA be delinked from MGNREGS, as converging NBA with MGNERGS slowed down the process. 4. SBA will explore convergence schemes for construction of Community Sanitary Complexes, school and Anganwadi toliets and for creation of integrated womens sanitation complexes. 5. Ministry plans to invest hugely in Information, Education and Communication activities and capacity building programmes. 6. It plans increase unit cost of toilets offered under NBA-MGNERGS scheme which provided Rs.10,000 for General regions and Rs.10,500 in hilly regions. If unit cost is still inadequate, then officials will plan to extend small loans through NABARD, SIDBI or through Priority Sector Lending of banks. 7. Nirmal Gram Puraskar awarded in the form of financial incentive since 2003 will be replaced by Swachh Bharat Puraskar. 8. To avoid discrepancies in data collection, Monitoring System and Delivery Mechanism under SBA will go for detailed recording of households with photographs of house owners along with geographical coordinates. 9. SBA is supposed to construct 87.6 million household toilets by 2019. In its mission,SBA wants to construct 42,000 toilets per day till 2019 which is three times of toilets constructed per day under NBA. Sources: United Nations and World Bank,DTE, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation websites, the Hindu
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 07:33:36 +0000
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