{"id":35479,"date":"2018-10-31T17:45:52","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T12:15:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=35479"},"modified":"2018-10-31T17:45:52","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T12:15:52","slug":"more-than-toilets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/more-than-toilets\/","title":{"rendered":"More Than Toilets:\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/opinion\/columns\/more-than-toilets-4807546\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">More Than Toilets<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Context<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The prime minister\u2019s flagship programme, the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), is progressing towards Gandhiji\u2019s dream of a clean India with all its villages becoming Open Defecation Free (ODF).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Three years of SBM<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Launched in October 2014 and scheduled to culminate by October 2, 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of Gandhiji, the SBM is close to completing three years.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The progress is good, with rural sanitation coverage having gone up from 39 per cent to 67 per cent in three years.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over 230 million people in rural India have stopped defecating in the open. Five states, 186 districts and over 2,31,000 villages have been declared as ODF.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Major Achievements<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The major achievement, however, is not a spurt in the construction of toilets, but the focus on behaviour change.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The chief achievement is rapidly spreading public awareness of the need for sanitation and usage of toilets.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The most significant policy shift in this regard has been the move from outputs (number of toilets built) to outcomes (ODF villages), since ODF signifies the entire village unit makes this commitment.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is increasing realization in rural India that, in addition to the violation of dignity, especially that of women and girls, open defecation significantly adds to the disease burden, especially of children below the age of five.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>SBM and the Information, Education and communication (IEC)<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The SBM seeks to carry out one of the largest behaviour change campaigns in history, mainly through effective information, education and communication (IEC).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At one end of the IEC spectrum is the use of mass media: Print and electronic, using celebrities.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At another end, it is the use of interpersonal communication, where trained grass roots level motivators, or swachhagrahis, work under an incentive-based system to \u201ctrigger\u201d behaviour change by stimulating community-level demand for toilets.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Involving locally elected representatives, grass roots-level organizations, NGOs and school students in spreading awareness on sanitation is also a key aspect of the SBM\u2019s approach to IEC.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Verification of ODF<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The SBM ambitiously aims at having at least one trained grassroots-level swachhagrahi in each village in India, of which over 1,50,000 are already in place.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once a village declares itself as ODF, proof of the latter status becomes key for which the SBM guidelines provide for a 90-day window from the date of ODF declaration.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The verification process also allows for any gaps or errors in ODF status to be rectified<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Presently, verification of ODF villages stands at around 56 per cent. To accelerate the verification process, the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation has recently issued policy guidelines that state governments will be eligible for release of the second instalment of central funds only if they have fully verified all their ODF villages.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The programme also has a fairly robust system of verification at district and state level.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the national level, the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, performs separate checks as well as third party sample surveys by independent organizations.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A national 1,40,000-household survey, carried out by the Quality Council of India during May-June 2017, found that national usage of toilets was 91 per cent.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More Than Toilets:\u00a0 Context The prime minister\u2019s flagship programme, the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), is progressing towards Gandhiji\u2019s dream of a clean India with all its villages becoming Open Defecation Free (ODF). Three years of SBM Launched in October 2014 and scheduled to culminate by October 2, 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of Gandhiji, the&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/more-than-toilets\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">More Than Toilets:\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704842624},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}