Centre gives free hand to states to push Swachh Bharat drive

NEW DELHI: In a major policy shift, the Narendra Modi government has given a free hand to states and municipalities in implementation of Swachh Bharat scheme in urban areas. Till now all project proposals were to be appraised and approved by the urban development ministry, which proved to be the bane of UPA's flagship urban renewal mission - JNNURM.

The ministry issued the guidelines on Friday. This move has significance since the success of NDA's flagship scheme for complete cleanliness and sanitation is critically dependent on state governments and municipal bodies.

Sources said the ministry will seek Rs 2,000 crore budgetary support for the next three months to kick off the project and start effective implementation of the scheme. It focuses mainly on elimination of open defecation, manual scavenging, modern and scientific solid waste management besides generating awareness among people. The scope of the mission is also to ensure every household has toilets and there are enough community and public toilets as well.

The mission will cover all the 4,041 statutory towns and cities across the country. The guidelines approved by urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu says urban local bodies have been authorized to prepare, sanction and implement projects in respect of constructing individual household, community and public toilets. Solid waste management project proposals of urban local bodies (ULB) will be approved by state/ UT governments.

Initially, there will be awareness campaign to motivate beneficiaries, followed by house-to-house survey of household latrines by February. While first installment of Rs 2,000 crore from the Centre will be disbursed after verification of applicants, the second installment will be released only after proof of actual progress.

To avoid diversion of this financial assistance, ULBs will take self-attested geo-tagged photographs of construction along with the applicant. These photographs will be uploaded on the web so that there can be monitoring.

For community toilets and solid waste management, the first option would be to explore possibility of public private partnerships. Only new projects will be taken up to avoid duplication and the states and Union Territories have to send monthly and quarterly progress reports mentioning target and achievement. This should be online and there will be third party evaluation and impact evaluation studies.