As the Swachh Bharat Mission approaches the third anniversary of its launch by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation launched a third-party verification survey report to take stock of the progress already made by the Mission in rural India. The Quality Council of India (QCI) has conducted a transparent third-party assessment of the present status of rural sanitation in all states and UTs, called Swachh Survekshan Gramin 2017.
The survey covered 4,626 villages across all states and Union territories. QCI claims that 62.45 per cent of the households have access to a toilet and 91.29 per cent of the people who had access to a toilet also used it. Over 4.54 crore household toilets have been constructed since the launch of the Swachh Bharat Mission Gramin. A total of 160 districts, 2,20,104 villages and five states have been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF). Sanitation coverage has increased from 39 per cent in October 2016 to 66 per cent in August 2017.
To encourage states and districts to improve their sanitation coverage and Solid liquid Waste Management (SlWM), the MDWS will begin ranking all districts in India based on the data available on the SBM-G IMIS quarterly. The ranking will be done based on parameters of performance, sustainability and transparency, and the first ranking will be announced on October 2nd for the July-September period. To instill healthy competition among districts, they will also be given awards based on this ranking on a quarterly basis. The formula for calculating these rankings will be:
Further, in response to the Prime Minister’s call to the nation to Quit Filth, it was announced by Tomar that the Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) will celebrate the week leading up to the 71th Independence Day as Khule Mein Shauch Se Azaadi saptaah. Highlights of this week are:
The MDWS and MoWR, RD & GR will jointly announce 24 Ganga grams from five states, Uttarakhand (3), UP (10), Bihar (4), Jharkhand (5) and West Bengal (2) to make them Aadarsh Ganga Gram. Thirty Swachhta Raths will be launched at Allahabad on August 12 in the presence of the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Union Minister of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation.
Swachhta Raths will also be launched in other parts of the country.