What was Swatch Bharat Mission? Know more about it

About The Swatch Bharat Mission:-

This mission was announced on 2^nd Oct 2014 at Rajghat with an aim to clean India and waste management better. The major role of people in this mission were of our respected Prime Minister, shree Narendra Modi and Paremeshwaran Iyer who was a civil servant who turned as a CEO of NITI aayog. 

Before this program launched in 2014, it was launched in congress rule year 2009 name Nirmala Bharat Abhiyan. Comparatively, it was failed initiative due to the implementation problems. This mission of 2014 was launched under two phases.

The slogans raised for the promotion of this mission was “One step towards cleanliness” where it requested people to don’t dump waste of roads and do all possible efforts to clean your country. The marketing of slogans helps in getting attention of people and urging them to contribute towards preserving the beautiful heritage of their country and understanding the gravity of problem. This mission helped in making people change their behavior when they are dealing with the cleanliness of the country. Swatch Bharat Mission was a successful mission in creating awareness in people about the importance of cleaning India. It involved people from all spheres of life and contribute towards cleanliness.

Aims and objectives:-

The reason behind focusing on cleaning India and launching scheme like Swatch Bharat Mission are written below:-

1. To Promote Hygiene and cleanliness importance among people.
2. To raise people standard of living especially living in the rural areas.
3. To reduce the number of people who defecate in open areas.
4. To make people aware of environment friendly sanitation practices.
5. To help India in the path of sustainable development and making it clean for better tourism representation too.
6. To make people aware of the importance of the clean country and taking their help in this mission. Making a change in their behavior by persuading them.

How this scheme was implemented?

You might be wondering to know about how this scheme was implemented by the government what approach it have been taken to mark success.

1. Making common people involve in it and making them aware of their power to influence in this aspect of country. First making them analyze and know it’s importance which was an important step because as we know in a country where there is so much population and people have no time thinking about this issue as it appears small to each one of them. It was important to brand this mission in such a way that people find it as their problem and avoid doing things which can ruin cleanliness. It resulted in their behavioral changes and persuaded them to make a difference.
2. Using technology well through social media, campaigns by ngos many schools and other people belonging to different stage get into this drive and participated in making swatch bharat mission a successful mission.
3. Swatch Bharat Mission App:- the ministry of water and sanitation made an application of swatch Bharat mission app which have unique features like uploading selfies when made toilets which made people involved in it and take measures.
4. Awareness drive:- In 2014, Narendra modi  have taken help of various celebrities to take a part in this clean India mission like Sachin Tendulkar, Priyanka Chopra, Ramdev Baba, Vidya Balan, Shashi tharoor, Virat Kohli, Mahendra Singh dhoni etc. These celebs have a great fan following behind them. Involving them was a great India so that more and more people get influenced by them and creating a change.

Work progress so far:-

1. This mission is implemented at three levels:- nation, state and district.
2. National sanitation coverage have seen a rise in these years.
3. 5 states have been declared ODF meaning Open Defecation free.
4. 50 percent of urban areas have door to door waste collection services.
5. Toilet have been constructed in villages especially so that women and men don’t struggle for this basic need.

Current status and reports:-

According to the report of national sanitation survey of India, it have been found that 96.5% of households have toilets installed in their houses. Which was not earlier scene as we might heard problems that women have to travel long way to defecate. This mission helped in achieving the target to making toilets in houses of rural India. There are many toilets which have been constructed in all states and union territories.

Way Forward:-

1. Raising more awareness in people and dedicating such activities for school and college students so that they get involved in it and also giving them volunteering certificates which will act as a motivation factor to participate in such activities. These activities can include works like cleaning a park or a tourist spot, installing dust bins everywhere, visiting villages to take surveys and encouraging them. Awareness is important in such schemes of swatch bharat Abhiyan because India have so much population which make it important to persuade them and it needs collective efforts of common people as well as the government to do something regarding environment.
2. There should be laws and rules regarding cleanliness and if someone is seen throwing waste on streets, they should be penalized. This will prevent them to throw or dump solid waste anywhere and this will become their priority. Some people needs strict rules to make them follow the drive. As it’s hard persuading them.
3. There are brands working to make usable items like bags from solid plastic waste. Those brands should be encouraged in our society. More celebs should buy from those brands so that will encourage people to promote those environmental friendly brands and a collective way to use waste in a useful manner without any compromise.
4. Less use of plastic should be promoted in our country. So that people create less waste. Also there are brands who are replacing plastic and finding it’s alternatives like algae use. Such brands should be promoted by people.
5. More toilets should be built wherever there is less implementation in highways etc. so that people who are travelling can use them. These toilets can take a little fine from each user so that it can manage its function and expenditure.