Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

•  Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is a nation -wide campaign in India for the period 2014 to 2019.
•  It aims to clean up the streets, roads and infrastructure of India's cities towns, urban and rural areas.
•  The campaigns official name is in Hindi and translates to neat and tidy India mission in English . 
• The objectives of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan include eliminating open defecation through the construction of house hold owned and community -owned toilets and establishing an accountable mechanism of monitoring toilet use. 
• Run by the Government of India, the mission aims to achieve an open defecation free India by 2nd October 2019 the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi by constructing 100 million toilets in rural India at a projected cost of rupees 1.96 lakh crore. 
• The campaign was officially launched on 2nd October 2014 at Rajghat,Newdelhi by Prime minister Narendra Modi. 
• It is the Indias largest cleanliness drive. Modi has called the campaign "Satyagrah se Swachhagrah" in reference to Gandhi's "Champaran Satyagraha " launched on 10th April 1916.
•  The government has constructed 11 million toilets since 2014.
• Many people continue not to use toilets despite having them. The campaign has been criticized for using coercive approaches to force people to use toilets. 
• Many household have been threatened with a loss of benefits such as access to electricity or food entitlements through distributions system. 
• As per an independent survey released by quality Council of India in August 2017, overall national rural access to toilets increased to62.5% and usage of toilets to 91.3%.
• The World Health Organization has in its report stated that at least 1,80,000 diarrhoel deaths were everted in rural India since the launch of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan mission.