Framework to sustain India’s ‘100% ODF status’

News: Jal Shakti Ministry’s Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation (DDWS) has launched a 10-year national rural sanitation strategy.

Facts:

Aim: The strategy seeks to sustain India’s 100% Open Defecation Free (ODF) status claimed by the Union government, on September 27, 2019.

Duration: The framework will be in place from 2019 to 2029.

Focus Areas:

• It will ensure that people sustain their usage of toilets.
• It will also focus on proper implementation of solid and liquid waste management (SLWM) — plastic waste, organic waste, grey water, and faecal sludge in rural areas.

Implementation:

• A district-level training management unit (TMU) will be set up. It will provide oversight and support to gram panchayats (GPs) so that they ensure the operation and maintenance of sanitation infrastructure.
• The GPs are also supposed to conduct rapid assessment of water and sanitation gaps.

Financing:

• Government funding is the primary source of financing.
• Further, there will be alternative self-financing by gradual leveraging of community resources in the form of tariffs for ODF plus activities.
• 60:40 financing model as being followed till now in Swachh Bharat.

Additional Information:

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

• It is a cleanliness campaign initiated by Govt. of India in 2014. It seeks to achieve a Clean India by 2019, as a tribute to the 150th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
• It has two sub-missions. Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) and Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban):
• Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) aims to improve the levels of cleanliness in rural areas through Solid and Liquid Waste Management activities and making villages Open Defecation Free (ODF) and clean. It is implemented by Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Jal Shakti Ministry
• Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) aims at elimination of open defecation, conversion of unsanitary toilets to pour flush toilets, eradication of manual scavenging, municipal solid waste management and bringing about a behavioural change in people regarding healthy sanitation practices. It is implemented by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs