By Vritika Mathur
Citizens in a remote part of Uttar Pradesh embarked on ‘Mission Battees‘ (thirty-two)– a challenge to build 32,000 toilets in 120 hours in the last week of March as a part of the Narendra Modi’s sanitation program, the ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’. Although the locals bid to set a Guinness world record was successful as they failed to give the organization a six-month notice, mandated by their guidelines, the feat has been commended nationally.
The “mission” was undertaken by residents between March 26 and 30, and participants described the race to the finish as a “mela” with hundreds of people working to build toilets day and night in the area. This was a massive challenge not only due to the wide-scale mobilization required to conduct the mission but also because the Gonda district of UP has made headlines in the past when it was declared the dirtiest city in India in the 2017 Swachh Survekshan rankings.
Divya Mittal, Gondas chief development minister said in an interview with the Hindu, that the mission did well since it was a community-led project. “The government is not building the toilets. That was tried 10 years ago, and those toilets were not used and fell apart because the people had no investment, no stake,” she said. “If a man builds his own toilet, he will use it.“
The Centres Swachh Bharat Abhiyan promises Rs 12,000 to any household that builds a toilet. However, several villagers have complained about local authorities only providing funding after construction has been completed, which poses a funding problem for participants. Additionally, villagers have also complained about bias and favouritism at the hands of the pradhan and his administrators who choose the first beneficiaries of the cash. The problem is also compounded by the existence of local corruption despite the government’s attempts to make payments through direct bank transfers and cheques.
Swachh Bharat progress status
The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was launched in 2014, and over Rs 60,000 crore has been spent on the program by the government, aiming to make India Open Defecation Free (ODF) by 2019. While Mission Battees has made considerable progress in districts of UP, the same cannot be said about all parts of the country. In many places, the toilets constructed have been converted into storerooms, shops or even small cubicles with a tin roof. There are instances of success as well, such as in the Alirajpur district of Madhya Pradesh, toilets been built well with separate water tanks, concrete roofs and proper structures.
However, an important point to note is that studies on the mission cannot confirm the governments claims of meeting the stated targets. Numbers illustrating the progress of the scheme come from the governments own administrative data along with the Swachh Survekshan Gramin 2017, conducted by the Quality Council of India (QCI). Surveys conducted in 2017, three years after the implementation of the program claimed 62.45% India-wide latrine coverage and added that 91.29% of people with access to a toilet use it, amounting to a huge success for the program.
The surveys used to collect the data have been criticised by experts, with several pointing out that they depict an inaccurate representation of whether or not villagers are actually using the newly built toilets. Additionally, studies conducted by international organizations and independent researchers such as the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), and WaterAid, showed that districts that have been declared ODF had been falsely reported.
An analysis of the cleanliness situation of our country brings to light the many complexities in improving sanitation. Perhaps the need of the hour is to hold the government accountable for the real progress of the scheme and demand that villages not be declared ODF simply to reach a target on paper by 2019.