ESSAY: Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was a country wide campaign in India from 2014 to 2019. The campaign was officially launched on 2 October 2014 at Rajghat, New Delhi by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The aim of the mission was to eliminate open defecation, improve Solid Waste Management and make people aware about the importance of sanitation. The scheme had an aim to achieve "Open Defecation Free"(ODF) India by 2 October 2019 at the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

The mission was divided into two categories: Rural and Urban. It is India's largest campaign for cleanliness involving 3 millions government employees and students from all over India, participating in 4,043 cities, towns and rural communities. 

In India, problem of Open Defecation and contamination of drinking and bathing water was very big. In 2014, India was having largest number of people participating in Open Defecation, around 530 million peoples. 
 90 million toilets in rural area were planned at projected cost of 1.96 lakh crore INR. It spanned in almost 4041 statutory cities and towns. For improving solid waste management, cities were asked about detailed project report that have financial model and are bankable. Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was expected to cost at 620 billion INR. World bank provided loan of 1.5 billion USD for Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and 25 million USD for technical assistance.

Government appointed CPWD for proper disposal of waste from government offices. Ministry of railways planned to have facility of clean on demand, clean bed rolls from automatic laundries, bio-toilets and dustbins in all non-AC coaches. Swachh Bharat Swachh Vidyalaya Campaign was launched by Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India to encourage school teachers and students to participate in cleanliness drives. Swachh Bharat Mobile App was launched to make more and more people aware about Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
 In 2017, the sanitation level in India rose to 65% from 38.7% on Oct 2, 2014 and it was 90% in August.

The number of volunteers participating were 20000 in urban local bodies and those working in rural areas rose to more than 1 lakh. Number of schools with separate toilets for girls increase from 0.4 million to almost 1 million. Nearly 100 million personal individual toilets were build in rural areas and 6 million toilets in urban areas. 6 million public toilets have been constructed in urban areas.

Consequently, 4234 cities and 6,00,000 villages across countries declared themselves Open Defecation Free(ODF). Around 81.5 thousand wards now uses door to door waste collection procedure and around 65 thousand wards follow waste segregation before disposal of waste.
 Our government has provided us with a platform to do something for our family and country. Sanitation is the basic need for each and everybody.

Improper waste management will not only degrade environment will also degrade beauty of landscape. It will be harmful for stray animals. Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was not a time based campaign but should be continued in future and We, the citizens of India have the sole responsibility and duty to maintain cleanliness around us.