“SWACHH PRASHASAN” IS ESSENTIAL TO ACCOMPLISH “SWACHH BHARATH”

“SWACHH PRASHASAN” IS ESSENTIAL TO ACCOMPLISH “SWACHH BHARATH”

Launch of Swachh Bharath Abyan (SBA):

NDA Government under Sri Narendra Modi leadership took up cleanliness drive as its flagship program and launched it in big way on 2^nd October,2014 (Gandhi Jayanti) and declared that India will be litter free nation by 2^nd October,2019.  The Government gave thrust to program by announcing brand ambassadors, involving corporates, conducting special drives, massive toilets construction program and  special tax (Swachh Bharath tax) is introduced. In reality it is nothing but an extension of UPA program “Nirmal Bharath Abyan” by changing the name to “Swachh Bharath Abyan”, with a promise of better delivery with measurable indicators.

First three years there were lot of  campaigns, photo sessions of celebrities, corporates, political personalities with cleanliness drives, hungama from SBA ambassadors and enough hype was created. During last one year there is not much talk about SBA, everyone including celebrities, brand ambassadors including PM have gone into silence mode.  

Massive individual toilets program, Solid waste management including wealth from garbage, open defecation free (ODF) villages are initiated in large scale and certainly some impact is being felt and realistic picture is yet to emerge. Though the waste segregation at household level is planned, it is not having great impact due to lack of awareness even among educated home makers.  Family level/ small community level waste management (waste to compost) system looks to be a workable solution for efficient management of waste with reduced operational cost.  There are hardly any efforts from the urban bodies in this direction and literally nothing is being done in these lines.

SBA in Urban Scenario:

If we look at budgets of major municipal corporations, their revenues are much more than corporate entities. But when it comes to operational efficiencies, these urban bodies lack competence and reflect poorly in deliveries. The spirit of SBA is in proper planning and implementation of programs  through community participation and its totally lacking in operations. None of the municipalities are willing to  share the budgets, tendering process, operations with communities or civil society organizations and keep the public at distance. With this existing situation, how do we expect people’s participation and success of the program.
    

Professional corporate companies usually have vision/mission in place and any change in management will still look at the vision/mission and implement strategic plans within the same frame work or conduct restructuring exercise and put new vision in place. Whereas, in case of municipal corporations they tend to become person oriented and driven by successive commissioners agenda without continuity of the previous programmes in progress, resulting in imbalances.

It is often a practice that the successive commissioners bring their own people mostly on deputation from other departments, place them in coveted positions to ensure that sahib’s highly personalized vision is put into action for getting visibility to his/her personality, to establish his/her career path, followed by ensuring political priorities. The moment the personal agendas, current political priorities come into picture, the continuity of the programmes initiated earlier, the implementation strategy based on vision/mission of the corporation will lost its direction resulting in failures and directionless program implementation.

Due to these hidden agenda and constraints in implementation due to influence of eternal factors, hardly any urban body is interested in designing and implementation of programs based on people’s participation and involvement. No one is wiling to share the budgets and how funds are utilized and it is not an easy task for civil society organizations fight these bodies through RTI and other methods. The end result is snail pace implementation of programs with all sorts of mismanagement and inefficiencies, thus the success reflects only in reports not in real physical terms.  The recent clean city awards in smart city mission is true reflection of field realities.      

It is not uncommon to see in newspapers that even a grade IV employee in town planning, sanitation, vigilance etc are been caught with minimum double-digit crores wealth (on acquisition value) and they continue to manage the system and getting posted into green pastures continuously with political/currency support. The vigilance or ACB of respective states seldom touch even the middle level staff due to prevailing imitations in the system. It is near impossible to touch the top brass and forget about the commissioners.

Not everyone is corrupt and siphoning public funds. As the prevailing systems are shielding the corrupt and their practices, public is losing confidence on the system. There are people who served as municipal commissioners,  later surfaced as builders, politicians and leading lavish life and still going Scot free. With the present-day technology and systems in place it is not difficult to ensure accountability and transparency, provided the Government have right intentions.

Modi Ji promised clean Government and transparent Governance and voted to power with thumping majority. Four years passed and time has come to him to go back to voters and seek fresh mandate.  How long one can blame on legacy and get away? People are looking for tangible results with clear time bound deliveries.  Just changing the name from NBA to SBA will not fetch votes. SBA has to perform and deliver to gain public confidence.

Without putting clean administration with accountability in place how are we going to achieve SWACCH BHARATH?

B Guruva Reddy -9866889246

grbonthu@gmail.com