Impact assessment of Nirmal Gram Puraskar (NGP) awarded panchayats - A report by TARU

The Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) of the Rajiv Gandhi National Drinking Water Mission (RGNDWM), Govt of India was launched to cover all households with water and sanitation facilities and promote hygiene behaviour for overall improvement of health of the rural population. Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) were involved in scaling up the TSC to promote large scale social mobilisation to bring about behavioural change.

The Nirmal Gram Puraskar (NGP) was introduced as a part of the effort to give innovative financial incentives to encourage positive sanitation and hygiene behaviour changes in rural communities.

This impact assessment report by TARU attempts to understand whether:

• The principles of NGP were being fully maintained in existing awarded PRIs including the open defecation free environment
• The process had been socially inclusive
• The NGP award had influenced other sanitation related activities and overall social development in the awardee PRIs

Findings of the study

In terms of the sanitation and hygiene situation:

• Of the 85% households having access to individual, community or shared toilets, only around 66% used them. Poor or unfinished installations, lack of super structure and reluctance to change behaviour led to this non-use of toilets.
• Although the TSC had led to almost 70% people using toilets, 30% of the people were still found to resort to open defecation.
• In case of toilets in schools, lack of gender considerations, poor functionality and inadequate number of toilets as compared to the number of children using it during peak hours led to lack of use of toilets among children.
• More than half the GPs and households visited lacked mechanisms for solid and liquid waste disposal.

In terms of social mobilisation:

• There was a positive linkage between social mobilisation and performance of various sanitation indicators. PRIs and the Self help Groups (SHGs) had been very useful as agencies for social mobilisation.
• There had been severe drop in efforts towards social mobilisation and monitoring of Open Defecation Free (ODF) status after the NGP award had been received. 
• No gender or social exclusion was observed in majority of the GPs with respect to access and use of sanitation facilities and/or involvement in social mobilisation processes
• The NGP award  helped in scaling up the TSC to a great extent and helped in improving sanitation practices.

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