Swachh Bharat Abhiyan Essay

Latest Update about Swachh Bharat Abhiyan – The Finance Ministry announced in February 2021 that Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) 2.0 will be launched under the “Health and Wellbeing” vertical. The SBM-U phase-II will have a new component of wastewater treatment, including faecal sludge management in all Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) with less than 1 lakh population.

The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan Essay given below will be helpful for IAS Exam aspirants.

What is Swachh Bharat Abhiyan?

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is one of the most popular and significant missions in the History of India. This campaign was introduced by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, and was launched on 2nd October 2014 to honour Mahatma Gandhi’s vision of a Clean country.

Note: Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi received the award of “Global Goalkeeper” from the Gates Foundation for the initiative of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan on September 25, 2019, in New York.

Initially, this Swachh Bharat Abhiyan campaign was run on a national level in all the towns, rural and urban areas.

This essay on Swachh Bharat Abhiyan gives relevant details on the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan campaign and would be helpful for candidates for various exams like bank exams and government exams.

Do you know about the campaigns under Swachh Bharat Mission? These are:

1. ‘Plastic se Raksha’
2. ‘Swachhta Pakhwada’
3. ‘Swachhta Shramdaan’
4. ‘Swachhta hee Seva’

Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) 2.0

The government in the Union Budget 2021 allocated Rs 1,41,678 crores for the Swachh Bharat Mission (U) 2.0. The components of SBM-Urban 2.0 are:

1. New component – Wastewater treatment, including faecal sludge management in all ULBs with less than 1 lakh population
2. Sustainable sanitation (construction of toilets)
3. Solid Waste Management
4. Information, Education and Communication, and
5. Capacity building

Check the current year Union Budget 2024.

Achievements expected out of SBM-Urban 2.0:

1. ODF+ certification to all statutory towns.
2. ODF++ certification to all statutory towns with less than 1 lakh population.
3. Water+ certification to half of all the statutory towns with less than 1 lakh population.
4. Rating of at least 3-star Garbage Free to all statutory towns as per Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA’s) Star Rating Protocol for Garbage Free cities.
5. Bio-remediation of all legacy dumpsites.

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan Objective

The major objective of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is to spread the awareness of cleanliness and the importance of it.

The concept of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is to provide basic sanitation facilities like toilets, solid and liquid waste disposal systems, village cleanliness, and safe and adequate drinking water supply to every person.

You may also read about Swachh Survekshan in the linked article.

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan Action Plan

The action plan for the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is laid by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation. The vision is to triple the facility of sanitation by 2019. The major change to be implemented is in the Making of an Open Defecation Free(ODF) India.

Action Plan Highlights:

• Improve the growth percentage of toilets from 3% to 10% by 2019
• Increase in the construction of toilets from 14000 to 48000 daily
• Launch of a National Level/State Level Media campaign through audio-visual, mobile telephony, and local programmes to communicate the message of awareness.
• Involvement of school children in the activities for spreading awareness on Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene.

Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) 1.0

• Coming to Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban), it is under the Ministry of Urban Development and is commissioned to give sanitation and household toilet facilities in all 4041 statutory towns with a combined population of 377 million.
• The estimated cost is Rs 62,009 crore over five years with the centre’s share of assistance being Rs 14,623 crore.
• The Mission hopes to cover 1.04 crore households, give 2.5 lakh community toilet seats, 2.6 lakh public toilet seats
• It also proposes to establish solid waste management facilities in every town.

At the core of this mission lie six components:

1. Individual household toilets;
2. Community toilets;
3. Public toilets;
4. Municipal Solid Waste Management;
5. Information and Education Communication (IEC) and Public Awareness;
6. Capacity Building

• The Urban Clean India mission seeks to eradicate open defecation; convert insanitary toilets to flush toilets; eradicate manual scavenging, and facilitate solid waste management.
• The mission emphasizes on ushering in a behavioral change among people, for healthy sanitation practices, by educating them about the damaging effects of open defecation, the environmental dangers spreading from strewn garbage, and so on.
• To achieve these objectives, urban local bodies are being brought in and fortified to design, implement and operate systems to promote a facilitating environment for the participation of the private sector in terms of both capital and operations expenditure.

Aspirant can check previous years’ UPSC question papers at the linked article.

Swachh Bharat Mission (Rural)

• The Rural mission, known as Swachh Bharat Gramin, aims to make Village Panchayats open defecation free by October 2, 2019.
• Removing obstacles and addressing critical issues that affect results is the new thrust of this rural sanitation mission, which aims to provide all rural households with individual latrines; and build cluster and community toilets on public-private partnership mode.
• Considering the filth and unhygienic conditions in village schools, this programme lays special emphasis on toilets in schools with basic sanitation amenities.
• Construction of Anganwadi toilets and management of solid and liquid waste in all Village Panchayats is the object of the Clean India mission.

Ranking of cities

Every year, cities and towns across India are awarded the title of ‘Swachh Cities’ based on their cleanliness and sanitation drive as a part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan that was launched in 2014.

Highlights

• Indore in Madhya Pradesh is India’s cleanest city and Gonda in Uttar Pradesh the filthiest
• Out of 10 cleanest cities, 2 are from Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh each while Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Maharashtra each have one
• Out of 10 dirtiest cities, Uttar Pradesh has 5 cities, 2 each from Bihar and Punjab and one of Maharashtra
• 118 out of 500 cities were found to be Open Defecation Free (ODF)
• 297 cities have 100% door to door collection of garbage
• 37 lakh citizens showed interest in Swachh Surveksan
• There are 404 cities where 75% of residential areas were found substantially clean
• Gujarat has a maximum of 12 cities among the top 50 cleanest, followed by Madhya Pradesh with 11 and Andhra Pradesh with eight

According to the survey among top 50 clean cities:

• Gujarat has a maximum of 12 cities followed by
• Madhya Pradesh with 11 and
• 8 in Andhra Pradesh
• Telangana and Tamil Nadu account for 4 cities each followed by
• Maharashtra with 3 cities

Note: The 2021 ranks are yet to be out. It will be released post the complete of Swachh Survekshan 2021 (1st February – 15th February 2021.)

 Swachh Bharat Abhiyan Essay- Conclusion

This essay on Swachh Bharat Abhiyan throws light on some important aspects given below:

• Sanitation needs to be seen as a life cycle issue and hence providing sanitation facilities at work, education and other public spaces are important.
• This requires investing in the right place at the right time and in the most appropriate manner. Time is running out and the Mahatma’s 150th birth anniversary is not far away.
• The SBM should not become yet another government scheme that makes the right noises initially only to die a quiet death once the spotlight moves away.
• SBM is definitely with great goals and objectives, the issues associated with finance, implementation & awareness needs to be tackled in the right manner, every citizen of India should involve themselves and inculcate the behavioural changes to the literates and illiterates towards cleanliness respectively.

SBM – Facts for UPSC

• Under the Swachh Bharat Mission, it has been decided to undertake a special clean-up initiative focused on 100 iconic heritage, spiritual and cultural places in the country.

• This initiative aims to make these 100 places model ‘Swachh Tourist Destinations’, which will enhance the experience for visitors from India and abroad.

• Under Phase 1 of this initiative, the following iconic places were selected for an intensive clean up:

1. Vaishno Devi: Jammu and Kashmir
2. Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus: Maharashtra
3. TajMahal: Uttar Pradesh
4. Tirupati Temple: Andhra Pradesh
5. Golden Temple: Punjab
6. ManikarnikaGhat: Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
7. Ajmer Sharif Dargah: Rajasthan
8. Meenakshi Temple: Tamil Nadu
9. Kamakhya Temple: Assam
10.  Jagannath Puri: Odisha

• The lessons and experiences from Phase 1 are integrated into the clean-up campaign for the remaining 90 sites.

Note: Aspirants need not remember these places but should have some familiarity concerning their locations and significance.

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan – UPSC Notes:-Download PDF Here

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