The Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Ministry of Jal Shakti, has started a fortnightly campaign, ‘Swachhta Hi Sewa’ (SHS) to accelerate the efforts towards complete sanitation in rural India. It is a massive community mobilization drive for cleaning up of legacy waste and activities for solid waste management. As part of this annual campaign, States are requested to organise activities with the objectives of (i) ensuring community mobilization and participation, a “jan andolan” towards Open Defecation Free (ODF)Plus villages (ii) disseminating importance of a “sampoorn swachh” village (iii) reinforcing the concept of “Sanitation as everyone’s business” and (v) commemorating Swachh Bharat Diwas (2nd October) at the village level. The Campaign has started from today i.e.15th September and will culminate on 2nd October.
The calendar of activities is as following:
- 15th September – 2nd October: Swachhata Hi Seva Activities
- 15th– 17thSeptember: Shramdaan with massive peoples’participation
- 26th September – 28th September: United India for Swachhata in 9 States
- 2nd October – Swachh Bharat Diwas: Gram Sabha meetings for ODF Plus village declarations and other activities; and, Awarding Swachh Survekshan Grameen (SSG) 2022 winners at National level.
A virtual conference (VC) was also conducted with the States on 9th Sept 2022, under the co-chairmanship of Union Minster of Jal Shakti and Union Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, in this regard. Herein the Union Ministers urged the participants for 3 dedicated days of concerted efforts,on 15th, 16th and 17th Sept 2022 as ‘shramdaan’ on cleanliness activities particularly cleaning of legacy waste sites and public places.
- The key activities that will be organised in the villages under this campaign include:
- Cleaning of legacy waste sites in the villages
- Construction of waste collection & segregation sheds/centres
- Keeping the areas near water bodies clean and doing tree plantation around them
- Community awareness for segregation of waste (dry and wet) at source
- Purchasing waste collection vehicle like tricycle/E-cart (battery operated vehicle) through GeM
- Door to door collection of non-biodegradable waste like plastics
- Generate awareness about the ill effects of Single Use Plastics (SUP) by organizing Gram Sabha meetings and passing resolutions for ban on SUPs’
- promote 4Rsprinciple for Plastic Waste Management – Refuse, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
- Sarpanch Samvads on ODF Plus elements
- Massive IEC and mass media campaign with wide range of activities as wall paintings, nukkad naataks, swachhata raths, social media material, gram sabhas to educate people through IPC
- Slogan writing/pledge taking for “No Littering”
- Update daily progress of SHS activities at SHS portal
(https://sbm.gov.in/shs/shs2022/index.aspx)
