ODF

Despite the launch of the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) in 2002, Hamirpur district in Himachal Pradesh remained almost cut off from the toilet frenzy until 2006-07. Nearly 56% of households had no individual toilets when the campaign was initially launched. Five years into the campaign, less than 1% of the set target was achieved.

With over 638 million people defecating in the open, India’s obsession with constructing toilets is not surprising. In a bid to arrest the number of people going out to answer nature’s call, successive governments have been pushing their total sanitation drive under different names.

Since the rebranding of the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan to the Swach Bharat Mission, newspapers have been flooded with articles and discussions on the need to improve the sanitation scenario in India.

Sikkim achieves 100% sanitation

Sikkim only state in the country with 100% sanitation

India's rural sanitation programme- Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) was started in 1999, with a goal of eradicating open defecation. Renamed to Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA) in April 2012, the focus and approach of this programme was supposed to undergo a paradigm shift.

India moves up two notches on the Global Hunger Index

Govt to create food godowns under MNREGA

Govt to ban mining and thermal power projects in Western Ghats

Environment ministry decides to declare 37% of Western Ghats spreading across six states as Ecologically Sensitive Area. 

Subsidy proponents believe that the poor need economic incentives while shaming proponents contend that to bring out lasting behavioural change, intrinsic motivation is required; people are more likely to use and value things they have had to pay for.