Swach Bharat Abhiyan

Launching
Swachh Bharat or Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Campaign Clean India) is a national level campaign by the Government of India covering 4041 statutory towns to clean the streets, roads and infrastructure of the country.

This campaign was officially launched on 2 October 2014 at Rajghat, New Delhi, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself wielded broom and cleaned a road. The campaign is India’s biggest ever cleanliness drive and 3 million government employees and schools and colleges students of India participated in this event. The mission was started as a tree with EACH ONE of the nine personalities nominated by Narendra Modi to in turn nominate nine other people and so on. It has been carried forward since then with famous people from all walks of life joining it.

History
Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was announced by Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi on Indian Independence Day & launched on 2 Oct 2014, Gandhi Jayanti. On this day, Modi addressed the citizens of India in a public gathering held at Rajghat, New Delhi, India and asked everyone to join this campaign. Later on this day, Modi himself swept a parking area at Mandir Marg Police Station followed by pavement in Valmiki Basti, a colony of sanitation workers, at Mandir Marg, near Connaught Place, New Delhi.

Objectives
This campaign aims to accomplish the vision of ‘Clean India’ by 2 October 2019, 150th birthday of Mahatma Gandhi and is expected to cost over 62000 crore (US$10 billion). The campaign was described as “beyond politics” and “inspired by patriotism”.

More than 3 million government employees and schools and colleges students of India are going to participate in this event

The details of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is under development presently. But the following principles will be included:

Construction of individual, cluster and community toilets.
To eliminate or reduce open defecation. Open defecation is one of the main causes of deaths of thousands of children each year.
Not only latrine construction, the Swachh Bharat Mission will also make an initiative of establishing an accountable mechanism of monitoring latrine use.
Public awareness will also be provided about the drawbacks of open defecation and promotion of latrine use.
For proper sanitation use, the mission will aim at changing people’s attitudes, mindsets and behaviours.
Proper, dedicated ground staff will be recruited to bring about behavioural change and promotion of latrine use.
To keep villages clean.
Solid and liquid waste management through gram panchayats.
To lay water pipelines in all villages, ensuring water supply to all households by 2019.
The scheme is based on the concept of rural development of Mahatma Gandhi which revolved around creating model villages for transforming swaraj (self rule) into su-raj (good governance). The objective is to create a holistic development of all adopted villages by the MPs in all aspects – human, personal, social, economic and environmental development, including provision of basic amenities, services, security and good governance.

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan Run
A ‘Swachh Bharat Run’ was organized at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on 2 October 2014. According to a statement from the Rashtrapati Bhavan around 1500 people participated and the event was flagged off by President Pranab Mukherjee . Participants in the run included officers and sice, as well as their families.