Salient Features of Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan

Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan was started in India by revamping erstwhile Total Sanitation Campaign in order to accelerate the progress of sanitation in rural areas of the country.

Under Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, the strategy is to transform rural India into ‘Nirmal Bharat’ by adopting the community led , demand driven and people centered strategies and community saturation approach, with emphasis on awareness creation and demand generation for sanitary facilities in houses, schools and for cleaner environment. Conjoint approach with the scheme of National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) has been adopted to address the issue of availability of water in the Gram Panchayats for sustaining sanitation facilities created.

Main activities Covered under Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan :

• Construction of Individual House Hold Latrines for which the enhanced incentive for individual household latrine units has been extended to all Below Poverty Line (BPL) Households and Above Poverty Line Households (APL) restricted to SCs/STs, small and marginal farmers, landless labourers with homestead, physically handicapped and women headed households.
• Convergence with Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme for additional financial assistance.Provision of sanitation facilities in Government Schools and Anganwadis in Government buildings.
• Assistance to Production Centres of sanitary materials and Rural Sanitary Marts
• Provision of construction of Community Sanitary Complexes.• Solid and Liquid Waste management (SLWM) to be taken up in project mode for each Gram Panchayat (GP) with financial assistance capped for a GP on the basis of number of household to enable all Panchayats to implement sustainable SLWM projects.
•  Information Education Communication (IEC) activities for sustainable demand generation for sanitation facility.
• Provision of extensive capacity building of the stake holders like Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs), Village Water and Sanitation Committees (VWSCs) and field functionaries for sustainable sanitation.
•  The rural sanitation coverage, in terms of access to toilet facilities, State-wise/UT as per Census 2011 is as follows