In News: Capital city of Odisha, Bhubaneswar, has earned the Open Defecation Free (ODF) ++ status
Background
Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM)
- SBM is a nation-wide campaign in India for the period 2014 to 2019 that aims to clean up the streets, roads and infrastructure of India’s cities, towns, urban and rural areas.
- The objectives of Swachh Bharat include eliminating open defecation through the construction of household-owned and community-owned toilets and establishing an accountable mechanism of monitoring toilet use.
- Run by the GoI, the mission aims to achieve an “open-defecation free” (ODF) India by 2 October 2019, the 150th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi by constructing 90 million toilets in rural India.
- The mission will also contribute to India reaching Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6), established by the UN in 2015.
- It is India’s largest cleanliness drive to date with three million government employees and students from all parts of India participating in 4,043 cities, towns, and rural areas.
- The mission has two thrusts:
- Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (“gramin” or ‘rural’), which operates under the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation;
- Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (‘urban’), which operates under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U)
- Ministry: Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA)
- The Swachh Bharat Mission – Urban (SBM-U), launched on 2nd October 2014 aims at making urban India free from open defecation and achieving 100% scientific management of municipal solid waste in 4,041 statutory towns in the country.
- Phase 1 of the mission lasted till October 2019. Phase 2 will be implemented between 2020–21 and 2024-25.
The objectives of the mission
- Elimination of open defecation
- Eradication of Manual Scavenging
- Modern and Scientific Municipal Solid Waste Management
- To effect behavioral change regarding healthy sanitation practices
- Generate awareness about sanitation and its linkage with public health
- Capacity Augmentation for ULB’s
- To create an enabling environment for private sector participation in Capex (capital expenditure) and Opex (operation and maintenance)
The Mission has the following components:
- Household toilets, including conversion of insanitary latrines into pour-flush latrines;
- Community toilets
- Public toilets
- Solid waste management
- IEC & Public Awareness
- Capacity building and Administrative & Office Expenses (A&OE)
The targets set for the Mission, which have to be achieved by 2nd October 2019 include:
- Construction of 66.42 Lakh individual household toilets (IHHL);
- Construction of 2.52 lakh community toilet (CT) seats;
- Construction of 2.56 lakh public toilet (PT) seats; and
- Achieving 100% door-to-door collection and scientific management of municipal solid waste (MSW).
Swachh Survekshan
- An annual survey of cleanliness, hygiene and sanitation in cities and towns across India.
- Ranks India’s cities, towns and states based on sanitation, waste management and overall cleanliness.
- Launched as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, which aimed to make India clean and free of open defecation by 2 October 2019.
- The first survey was undertaken in 2016 and covered 73 cities; by 2019 the survey had grown to cover 4237 cities and was said to be the largest cleanliness survey in the world.
- The surveys are carried out by the Quality Council of India; an autonomous accreditation body which was set up by the Government of India in 1997 for quality assurance in all fields, including governance.
Rankings
- The rankings, this year is based on the categorisation of cities on population, instead of releasing overall rankings.
- Cities with a population of more than 10 lakh
- Cities with a population of 1-10 lakh
- Cities with a population of less than 1 lakh
- Other categories have also been specified
Swachh Survekshan 2020
- Awards for Swachh Survekshan 2020 was recently announced
- It is the fifth edition of the annual cleanliness urban survey; one of the world’s largest sanitation surveys.
- Conducted by: Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA)
Results Swachh Survekshan 2020
- Cleanest City of India (> 1 lakh population category):
- Indore (1st)
- Surat (2nd)
- Navi Mumbai (3rd)
- Indore has created a record by winning the title of cleanest city fourth time in a row.
- Cleanest State of India(> 100 Urban Local Bodies category) : Chhattisgarh.
- Cleanest State of India(<100 ULB category) : Jharkhand
- Cleanest town along the banks of river Ganga: Varanasi
- Cleanest capital city: New Delhi
- Cleanest city with over 40 lakh population: Ahmedabad
Prerak Dauur Samman as part of Swachh Survekshan 2021
The Prerak Dauur Samman has a total of five additional sub- categories -Divya (Platinum), Anupam (Gold), Ujjwal (Silver), Udit (Bronze), Aarohi (Aspiring) – with top three cities being recognized in each. In a departure from the present criteria of evaluating cities on ‘population category’, this new category will categorize cities on the basis of six select indicator wise performance criteria which are as follows:
- Segregation of waste into Wet, Dry and Hazard categories
- Processing capacity against wet waste generated
- Processing and recycling of wet and dry waste
- Construction & Demolition (C&D) waste processing
- Percentage of waste going to landfills
- Sanitation status of cities