Vision of Clean India Campaign: Prospects and Challenges

Mahatma Gandhi once stated that "Sanitation is more important than Independence" and equated cleanliness next to godliness. Gandhi ji had two objectives: “Quit India and Clean India”. He accomplished the first one and his cleanliness drive was once again revived by our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi on 2nd October 2014 as ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’-Clean India Campaign. The goal is to makes India Open Defecation Free (ODF) by the 150th birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation in 2019. If we are able to achieve this goal, it would be a befitting tribute to him who always advocated for cleanliness. In spite of being a highly spiritual nation, India tops the world in open defecation. The problem is more severe in rural areas.

This initiative envisages a vision of Clean India and to bring about an improvement in the general quality of life of Indians by promoting cleanliness and hygiene. The vision is quite comprehensive and it has a potential to bring a significant improvement in Indian society, economy, polity and environment.

However, the vision presents huge challenges in realizing the goals. These challenges pertain to various aspects such as social inertia, lack of political will, comprehensiveness of the vision; inter ministerial coordination, technological bottlenecks in waste management, sustainability and convergence of sanitation programmes, soliciting proactive and integrated contribution from various stakeholders etc.

Nonetheless, “Vision of a Clean India” has huge prospect for India to evolve into an even greater nation. However, dealing with the challenges is not going to be easy and it will require ample amounts of social and political will. The Clean India campaign is just a great start. We have a long way journey to go. It requires support and commitment from all genres of people of India.