Science journal Nature recently reconfirmed what Swachh Bharat implementers, activists and partners have been saying all this time. Research led by Suman Chakrabarti of the International Food Policy Research Institute, US, and published in the peer-reviewed journal showed that freedom from open defecation has helped avert 60,000-70,000 infant deaths a year in India. The infant mortality rate (deaths per 1,000 live births) in the country fell from 39 in 2014 to 28 in 2020. The authors recommended low- and middle-income countries to follow the example of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM).
The World Health Organization reported a similar finding earlier. Other credible studies suggest families in open defecation free (ODF) villages save Rs 50,000 a year on health costs. ODF areas have distinctly less contamination of groundwater, too.
It started on independence day in 2014, when the prime minister linked the absence of safe sanitation to the predicament of women in the country. The following October 2, the SBM set off in the pursuit of an India free of open defecation within a daunting timeframe of five years.
What followed could be counted among the most magical achievements for a public programme anywhere. Indians across sections came together in an unprecedented manner for the cause of cleanliness. The world’s largest sanitation scheme also became the world’s largest behaviour-change miracle. The provision of 120 million toilets under the SBM have meaning only because 600 million open defecators confirm usage.
This achievement, despite occasional skirmishes over the data, calls for celebration—especially when some of India’s other socio-economic parameters are still not among the best. Celebrate we must, because India has achieved this better sanitation and higher cleanliness several years before the 2030 deadline set by the UN’s sustainable development goals.
But the 10th anniversary of the SBM is not without a few questions.
How and how soon can one get rid of the piles of dirt we can see around? Will there be freedom from the swamping plastic waste? Will grey water in ever-increasing quantities be treated lest they pollute our water bodies?
And there is the issue of holding up toilet usage. Sustaining ODF status will remain a sticky task ever threatened by a possible reversal of habits.
The priority has moved from toilet numbers to the bigger and messier task of waste management. Used water has acquired higher attention. Sampoorn Swachhata is the goal of the new phase of SBM that commenced soon after all states declared themselves as ODF in 2019. India’s 4,800 cities should become garbage-free at the earliest, with remediation of about 2,400 mountains of dumpsites on the periphery of several cities and with no new waste dumps allowed to come up.
Amidst competing priorities in the life of a nation, the SBM retains the strength of adequacy of resources. Both rural and urban components of the mission have been supported by over Rs 1.40 lakh crore each in the second phase. The programme is further boosted by a 60 percent commitment to water and sanitation services out of the sizeable devolution to local bodies made by the 15th Finance Commission.
It is reassuring that the SBM is bouncing back, alive to its critical linkage with the larger environment and climate, and its role in India’s circular economy. About 40 percent of the staggering 22 crore tonnes of legacy dumps have been neutralised. Close to 80 percent of massive urban waste now gets processed, compared to a mere 16 percent in 2014. Door-to-door collection of waste at the ward level that started from nothing is about to saturate. Material recovery and waste processing facilities are multiplying, though the need is significantly more. Waste to energy plants and recycling startups are on the ground, backed by technology and evolving policy support. Private entrepreneurs are looking at the waste management sector as a profitable industry.
More technology and enterprise does not take away the community from the mission. Citizen engagement remains at its core. A quick example is the individual and community responsibility for source segregation of waste, without which a final solution to urban waste will be elusive. If the 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle) are seen as the long-term answer to waste eradication and a sustainable environment, the required restraint and civic habits must be ingrained in families and the neighbourhood. In the words of PM Modi, founder and chief advocate of the SBM, the task must carry on ‘generation after generation, with alertness, continually, without being tired or stopping’.
It is significant, hence, that millions of Indians have descended on public spaces this fortnight for shramdaan in a high display of collective action. By specifically taking up over 8 lakh locations of rigid filth called cleanliness target units, the Swachhata Hi Seva (SHS) campaign this year conveys business and determination. About 270 million citizens have already joined the efforts, and the number is growing. In recognition and solidarity with its true guardians, over one and a half lakh special camps for health and welfare of sanitation workers are planned by the side. The mission has systematically placed safai mitras on the pedestal they deserve.
This countrywide schedule marks a reiteration that swachhata is everyone’s business. The purpose is to give over ownership to the larger community and integrate cleanliness into daily habits. The past 10 years have created a heritage on which the future of sustainable and comprehensive sanitation can be built. The SHS 2024 that culminates on Gandhiji’s birth anniversary, also called Swachh Bharat Diwas, is a renewal of the promise.
(Views are personal)
Akshay Rout | Former Director General, Swachh Bharat Mission