Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA) does not provide for support for reconstruction of old, dilapidated and abandoned low cost toilets constructed under Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC).
Under the existing NBA guidelines, the maintenance expenses of Individual Household Latrines (IHHLs) are to be met by the households themselves.
Target 7c, set under Millennium Development Goals (MDG) 7, seeks to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation (based on 1990 data).
This would imply that at least 54.7% of the rural households should have access to sanitation by 2015 to meet MDG target.
According to the information presented in the WHO/UNICEF report on ‘Progress on Sanitation and Drinking Water 2013 Update’, the use of sanitation facilities as a percentage of population was 34% in rural areas of the country. As per Census 2011 also, 32.67 % of rural households reported to have access to toilets.
The National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) 69th round report released in 2013 has estimated that 40.6% of rural households have access to sanitation facilities. The NBA seeks to make the country open defecation free by the year 2022.
The Government hopes to achieve the target with a revised strategy under NBA, which focuses on the following:-
• A shift from motivating individual household toilet construction to covering whole communities in a Gram Panchayat saturation mode for holistic sanitation outcome.
• Increase incentives for construction of IHHLs.
• Widening of eligibilities of incentives to selected households within Above Poverty Line(APL) categories
• Focus on Information Education Communication (IEC) with emphasis Inter-Personal Communication (IPC)
• Conjoint approach with National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) to ensure water availability for sanitation in Gram Panchayats. Focused convergence of rural sanitation with associated Ministries including Health, School Education, Women and Child Development with NBA.
