The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan which was launched on 2nd October 2014 by the Prime Minister of India Mr. Narendra Modi for the duration of 5 years has now come to the end on 2nd October 2019.
The main goal of the Mission was to make India completely free from open defecation by the end of the mission for which the government has made all possible efforts and probably has nearly succeeded in achieving the target.
As we all know that the problem of open defecation lies at the root of Indian society and removing it is not a piece of cake that is why the Swachh Bharat Mission has gone through many ups and downs during the period and was also criticized many times by politicians and other personalities yet was welcomed by the mass population of India.
After the 2nd October 2018, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has entered into its last year of operation which will be ended on 2nd October 2019. In the last four years, the mission has brought many behavioural changes in the daily activities of the people. Door to door garbage collection, dry and wet waste segregation, plastic waste management, construction of toilets etc. has changed the situation completely.
Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is not the first cleanliness mission of the central government in India but many other cleanliness missions have also been activated as Nirmal Bharat Yojana and many others but the Swachh Bharat Mission is the biggest cleanliness drive in India ever and that is the main reason behind the mission for being successful and people appreciating by providing their participation.
With the cleanliness drive of central government, many state governments also started some cleanliness campaigns and mission in their areas which helped them to get the level of sanitation and also mention them in top cleaned cities and states in India. Few important of them are provided below:
Madhya Pradesh which is also called the ‘Heart of the India’ looks most serious about the cleanliness activities. The Madhya Pradesh government has made all efforts to make it completely open Defecation Free (ODF) State and ultimately it has succeeded in converting more than 50 districts and about 50 thousand villages into open defecation free. The Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh asked people to support in cleanliness for at least 2 days in a week to achieve the cleanliness as soon as possible. The progress of Swachh Bharat Mission in Gujarat in the last operation year is found to be approximately 40% more than that of the previous year.
Gujarat followed the concept of “Cleanliness is Godliness” of Mahatma Gandhi and started working in this field with various cleanliness drives. Gujarat government mainly focused on the use of community toilets by the people instead of going for open defecation, management and segregation of plastic and non-plastic wastes and providing a plastic free environment. They also launched few other programs under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan like Solid Waste Management Program, Pay and Use Toilet Scheme, City Sanitation Plan etc.
The Kerala government gave a slogan of “My Waste My Responsibility” under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. In Kerala, the government requested to treat various types of wastes in different and proper ways. The government instructed people to manage the bio-degradable wastes in appropriate ways as taught from the childhood and to handover the non-biodegradable wastes to the responsible departments for further recycling. The Kerala government has also planted Material (Waste) Collection Facility (MCF), Resource Recovery Facility (RRF) and Plastic Shredding Unit to manage the wastes.
The state of Arunachal Pradesh has shown a special interest towards Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and is almost about to be declared 100% open defecation free state by next few months if it continues to work in the same manner. To make the mission ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’ effective in the state, the state government here launched another state programme to promote cleanliness in Arunachal Pradesh and named the mission ‘Hamara Elan Swachhta Aur Nari Uthan”. The mission was aimed at two important social issues cleanliness and women empowerment.
Pune is a grand city in Maharashtra which came into light because of its various cleanliness activities during Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in which many famous celebrities and personalities participated and made the event more special. In the series, the Municipal Corporation of Pune launched a cleanliness program “Chakachak Pune” to ensure cleanliness and complete hygiene in Pune. The Corporation mainly focuses on management of waste segregation. Thus the contribution of Pune in cleanliness drive made it to secure a reputable position in national ranking.
Jharkhand has also worked immensely in the field of cleanliness under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. With about 95% achievement of the mission, Jharkhand is on the way to be declared an open defecation free state soon. Jharkhand has not only worked on constructing new toilets but has also worked on painting the old and new toilets as well. The schooling children in Jharkhand are also taught the sanitation habits and how to do them. Jharkhand government is doing all possible way to achieve 100% sanitation in the state.
These were some important states doing well in the field of sanitation and hygiene. All these efforts by different state governments have made Swachh Bharat Abhiyan to work rapidly in the last year of its operation.
Although the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is the biggest cleanliness drive yet implementing it in such a largely populated country is like a herculean task. The project of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was applied with a view to make India completely open defecation free by 2nd October 2019 but the eradication of such a thing that is being practiced in India for many centuries is not that simple. There were and still are several challenges that Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has to face, such as:
These are some major challenges that Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has faced and is still facing. Definitely every major initiative has to go through several challenges to meet success and so is with Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. As declared by the government, Lots of things have been achieved by now but lots are yet to be achieved.
Despite many challenges, the greatest cleanliness drive ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’ has become successful beyond expectations. The achievements of the mission should not be left untold. Although the list of the achievements of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is quiet long, we have discussed few of its achievements here:
These are some important achievements of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Despite these, there have been several other achievements made by the drive. These achievements make the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan meaningful and inspire the people of India to contribute the most in the mission.