Creating a new normal:

Creating a new normal: (Indian Express, Editorial) (Leaving no stones unturned for a clean India)

Context:

• India has set itself a seemingly impossible goal, to end open defecation by October 2, 2019.

India’s primary concern:

• Lack of toilets allows faecal germs to spread, which cause sometimes fatal illnesses like cholera and diarrhoea, especially among children.
• Moreover, Undernutrition sets in, leaving kids more vulnerable to infections, which in turn make them more malnourished.

Achievement of the Abhiyan:

• 44 million toilets have been built since the declaration of the Swaach Bharat Abhiyan in October 2014.
• Over two lakh villages are open-defecation-free, as are 149 districts and 5 states.

Drawbacks of the Abhiyan:

• Not everyone who has a toilet, chooses to actually use it.

o Government has thus had to switch focus from building toilets to encouraging behavior changes that can make villages truly open defecation free. o Their surveys now aim to measure use as well as construction. Arguments:

• There’s an argument stating that incentivizing building toilets at a rapid pace is damaging because many are poorly constructed and some are never or partially used. This makes little sense from three perspectives.

o In the first place, it is incorrect to argue that a policy is poor for the reason that some aspects of implementation are challenging. o Second, even if 20 per cent of these new toilet owners continue to go to the bush, the reduction in infection from the 80 per cent who use toilets will provide substantial benefits. o Third, it flows from behavioral science that the very presence of a toilet is a constant reminder that society is changing, that new norms of hygienic behavior are expected. Conclusion:

• Swachh Bharat has garnered international support and emulation, and NGOs, national and international development agencies have mobilized across India’s least well-off districts.
• Academics will continue to play their important role of questioning government policy and remind them to use best practices but the Government must listen and continue to march on to achieve results by 2019.

BHAG

• Ending open defecation for all Indians by 2019 is what is known, in management parlance, as a BHAG, a Big Hairy Audacious Goal.
• Leadership experts know that by offering a worthwhile, but difficult to achieve vision, one can mobilize an institution, motivate a workforce, drive change and, sometimes, even reach that goal[1] .
• The BHAG was set by the great leader John F Kennedy in his speech in 1961, when he said, “We chose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things — not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”