Country India Disestablished 2014 | Established 1999 | |
Status Succeeded by Swachh Bharat Abhiyan | ||
Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (Hindi: निर्मल भारत अभियान, Nirmal Bhārat Abhiyān, and from 1999 to 2012 called the Total Sanitation Campaign, or TSC) was a programme following the principles of community-led total sanitation (CLTS) initiated by the Government of India in 1999. It was a demand-driven and people-centered sanitation program. It evolved from the limited achievements of the first structured programme for rural sanitation in India, the Central Rural Sanitation Programme, which had minimal community participation and was not following the principles of CLTS. The main goal of Total Sanitation Campaign was to eradicate the practice of open defecation by 2017. Community-led total sanitation was not focused on building infrastructure, but on changing cultural norms to prevent open defecation. In Maharashtra where the program started more than 2000 Gram Panchayats achieved "open defecation free" status. Villages that achieved this status received monetary rewards and high publicity under a program called Nirmal Gram Puraskar. The campaigning ambassador for Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan is Vidya Balan.
Contents
On 2 October 2014 the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan campaign was relaunched as Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission).
Social media campaign
Take Poo to the Loo, was an ongoing social media campaign to combat the country's problems with open defecation. It has been praised for its innovative approach.
Times of India reported that the idea was developed and initiated in March 2014 after a sanitation conference was organised by Unicef India and the Indian Institute of Technology as part of the larger Total Sanitation Campaign, which the Indian government launched in 1999.
Activities
Major activities covered under Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan were:
Lack of effectiveness in a study of similar methods
A randomized study of eighty villages in rural (Madhya Pradesh) was conducted to determine if India's Total Sanitation Campaign's (TSC) effort to eliminate open defecation was effective in reducing diarrhea and other gastrointestinal diseases in children. Results showed that the TSC programme did modestly increase the number of households with latrines, and had a small effect in reducing open defecation. However, there was no improvement in the health of children. Although the authors point out that their results are limited as to place (rural Madhya Pradesh), type of intervention (TSC), and type of measures (self-reported open defecation and child health), they conclude: "these findings highlight the challenges associated with achieving large enough improvement in access to sanitation and correspondingly large reductions in the practice of open defecation to deliver health benefits within large-scale rural sanitation programs." However, this study may not be used to judge the effectiveness of community-led total sanitation (CLTS) overall, as the presence of subsidies may fundamentally change the effectiveness of the process.