Public Awareness and Perception towards Swachchh Bharat Abhiyan-Clean India Movement

Sanitation in personal and public life is the joint responsibility of individual, community and state. But the public health system is very weak in India and sanitation could hardly attract the attention of government policy makers till the last decade of the past century. To accelerate the efforts to achieve universal sanitation coverage and to put focus on sanitation, the Prime Minister of India launched the ‘Swachchh Bharat Mission’. Slum population simply refers to people living in slum areas below the poverty line. To achieve a cleaner and better India, we must start with the slum people who are really very far behind basic cleanliness. This study was undertaken to study the public perception towards Swachchh Bharat-‘Clean India’ Campaign among public residing in slum areas, to analyse the respondents’ awareness about this campaign and to study the respondents’ opinion towards government's policies on cleanliness. This study was conducted at Chennai. The key observations and recommendations are presented in this paper.