As the revenue starts flowing from the Swachchh Bharat Cess levied from last November, the Centre has set up Rashtriya Swachhta Kosh (RSK) to deploy fund to achieve the goals of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious programme, Swachchh Bharat Mission (SBM) in rural and urban areas.
The Union Ministry of Drinking, Water and Sanitation last week issued a gazette notification in this regard, announcing constitution of the Kosh.
“The need for setting up the RSK was felt in view of severe shortage of funds being felt by the Centre for the demand-driven flagship scheme that aims to make the country open defecation-free by 2019,” said a senior official from the Ministry. The SBM consists of two missions- Swachchh Bharat Mission (Gramin) and Swachchh Bharat Mission (Rural).
As per the notification issued by SBM Director Nipun Vinayak on February 11, “the proceeds of Cess thus transferred to the RSK will be utilised as per the guidelines and components of SBM(G) and SBM(U) with due appropriation authorised by Parliament.”
Also, says the notification, the funds will be subject to internal and statutory audit will be distributed between the SBM(G) and SBM(U) in the ratio of 80:20 respectively.
On November 6 last year, in order to augment the resources for financing the SBM, the Government had notified levy of Swachchh Bharat Cess at the rate of 0.5 per cent on all taxable services which came into effect from November 15, 2015. Effectively, the new rate of service tax plus Swachchh Bharat cess is now 14.5 per cent.
As such, cess translates into a tax of 50 paisa on every one hundred rupees worth of taxable services. The proceeds from this cess is being exclusively used for Swachchh Bharat initiatives.
To meet the needs for the Mission, the Government in December last year released Rs2,400 crore as second Supplementary Budget provision to be utilised by March, end of this fiscal. “We don’t know if this amount is the Swachchh Bharat cess collected,” he added.
However, the Swachchh Bharat Kosh (SBK) launched last year, targetting collection of funds from the India Inc is yet to deliver expected results with just around Rs500 crore being received so far, said the official.
The SBK was kicked-off “to facilitate channelisation of philanthropic contributions and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds” to achieve the objective of improving cleanliness levels in rural and urban areas, including in schools under the SBM.
Using the donations, the fund aims to finance activities such as construction of new toilets as well as repair and renovation of dysfunctional toilets in rural areas, urban areas, elementary, secondary and senior secondary Government schools and anganwadis.