On Ground Study of the ODF Status of Ghaziabad District, U.P.
137
and communication (IEC) strategies, their planning and their effective implementation are the key to the success of Swachh Bharat Mission. Thus, IEC activities are
not treated as ‘stand-alone’ activity, but the SBM-G is largely about effective IEC to
promote adoption of safe and sustainable sanitation practices in the communities.
Thankfully, the Swachh Bharat Mission, since its initiation in 2014, has proven
to be a result-oriented and a fast-moving scheme. Its achievements over the years
have been worth praising. The pace of toilet construction since the announcement
of the scheme has been rising continuously. The following graph shows the same
(Graphs 1 and 2).
The declaration of villages as ODF has also seen a substantial improvement. The
above graphs show that since 2015, states have focused not only on construction of
toilets, but also on making sure that people use them and, therefore, on minimizing
the number of people who go out in the open every day.
However, it was also observed by various agencies that many districts that were
declared as ODF or showed 100% toilet construction on government Web sites still
had a fair number of people not using these facilities. One such district in Uttar
Pradesh, the district of Ghaziabad, which is a declared ODF district, was selected
to analyze whether the claims of these reports are, in fact, true and there still are a
substantial number of people to whom the benefits of SBM scheme have not fully
reached and are still using primitive ways of defecation. The purpose of this article
is to use the data collected through personal survey in Ghaziabad to analyze the
reasons for the difference in government reported and on ground implementations
of the SBM scheme in Ghaziabad and to give suggestions to reduce that gap to its
absolute minimum which can then be generalized to most cities of the country.
But before we do that, it is important to understand the standing and status of
Ghaziabad in the Swachh Bharat Mission.
ODF Village DECLARATION (in percentage)
105
90
88
70
58
53
35
30
18
7
0
2015-16
2016-17
2017-18
2018-19
Graph 1 ODF village DECLARATION (in percentage)
137
and communication (IEC) strategies, their planning and their effective implementation are the key to the success of Swachh Bharat Mission. Thus, IEC activities are
not treated as ‘stand-alone’ activity, but the SBM-G is largely about effective IEC to
promote adoption of safe and sustainable sanitation practices in the communities.
Thankfully, the Swachh Bharat Mission, since its initiation in 2014, has proven
to be a result-oriented and a fast-moving scheme. Its achievements over the years
have been worth praising. The pace of toilet construction since the announcement
of the scheme has been rising continuously. The following graph shows the same
(Graphs 1 and 2).
The declaration of villages as ODF has also seen a substantial improvement. The
above graphs show that since 2015, states have focused not only on construction of
toilets, but also on making sure that people use them and, therefore, on minimizing
the number of people who go out in the open every day.
However, it was also observed by various agencies that many districts that were
declared as ODF or showed 100% toilet construction on government Web sites still
had a fair number of people not using these facilities. One such district in Uttar
Pradesh, the district of Ghaziabad, which is a declared ODF district, was selected
to analyze whether the claims of these reports are, in fact, true and there still are a
substantial number of people to whom the benefits of SBM scheme have not fully
reached and are still using primitive ways of defecation. The purpose of this article
is to use the data collected through personal survey in Ghaziabad to analyze the
reasons for the difference in government reported and on ground implementations
of the SBM scheme in Ghaziabad and to give suggestions to reduce that gap to its
absolute minimum which can then be generalized to most cities of the country.
But before we do that, it is important to understand the standing and status of
Ghaziabad in the Swachh Bharat Mission.
ODF Village DECLARATION (in percentage)
105
90
88
70
58
53
35
30
18
7
0
2015-16
2016-17
2017-18
2018-19
Graph 1 ODF village DECLARATION (in percentage)