Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi received the award of “Global Goalkeeper” from the Gates Foundation for the initiative of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan on September 25, 2019, in New York.

What is Swachh Bharat Abhiyan?

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is one of the most popular and significant missions in the History of India. This campaign was introduced by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, and was launched on 2nd October 2014 to honor Mahatma Gandhi’s vision of a Clean country.

Initially, this Swachh Bharat Abhiyan campaign was run on a national level in all the towns, rural and urban area.

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan Objective:

The major objective of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is to spread the awareness of cleanliness and the importance of it.

The concept of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is to provide basic sanitation facilities like toilets, solid and liquid waste disposal systems, village cleanliness, and safe and adequate drinking water supply to every person.

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan Action Plan:

The action plan for the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is to be laid by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation. The vision is to triple the facility of sanitation by 2019. The major change to be implemented is in the Making of an Open Defecation Free(ODF) India.

Action Plan Highlights:

Improve the growth percentage of toilets from 3% to 10% by 2019
Increase in the construction of toilets from 14000 to 48000 daily
Launch of a National Level/State Level Media campaign through audio-visual, mobile telephony, and local programmes to communicate the message of awareness.
Involvement of school children in the activities for spreading awareness on Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene.

Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban):

Coming to Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban), it is under the Ministry of Urban Development and is commissioned to give sanitation and household toilet facilities in all 4041 statutory towns with a combined population of 377 million.
The estimated cost is Rs 62,009 crore over five years with the centre’s share of assistance being Rs 14,623 crore.
The Mission hopes to cover 1.04 crore households, give 2.5 lakh community toilet seats, 2.6 lakh public toilet seats
It also proposes to establish solid waste management facilities in every town.

At the core of this mission lie six components:

1- Individual household toilets;
2-Community toilets;
3-Public toilets;
4-Municipal Solid Waste Management;
5-Information and Education Communication (IEC) and Public Awareness;
6-Capacity Building

The Urban Clean India mission seeks to eradicate open defecation; convert insanitary toilets to flush toilets; eradicate manual scavenging, and facilitate solid waste management.
The mission emphasizes on ushering in a behavioral change among people, for healthy sanitation practices, by educating them about the damaging effects of open defecation, the environmental dangers spreading from strewn garbage, and so on.
To achieve these objectives, urban local bodies are being brought in and fortified to design, implement and operate systems to promote a facilitating environment for the participation of the private sector in terms of both capital and operations expenditure.

Swachh Bharat Mission (Rural):

The Rural mission, known as Swachh Bharat Gramin, aims to make Village Panchayats open defecation free by October 2, 2019.
Removing obstacles and addressing critical issues that affect results is the new thrust of this rural sanitation mission, which aims to provide all rural households with individual latrines; and build cluster and community toilets on public-private partnership mode.
Considering the filth and unhygienic conditions in village schools, this programme lays special emphasis on toilets in schools with basic sanitation amenities.
Construction of Anganwadi toilets and management of solid and liquid waste in all Village Panchayats is the object of the Clean India mission.