Swachh Sangram

Background

Due to its poor performance on various national-level health and sanitation parameters, Vizianagaram has been rated as one of the most backward districts in the country. The National Family Health Survey 4 has highlighted the poor condition of child and maternal health in the region. It is indicated that poor literacy among women, open defecation and lack of antenatal care is greatly affecting maternal health, and the lack of 100% immunisation and prevalence of hunger is leading to high levels of stunting and wasting among children. Sanitation, too had received little attention in the district until recently. Till February 2017, no block in the district had more than 50% toilet coverage. Only 44 out of the 923 Gram Panchayats had achieved ODF status. Twenty-nine out of the total 34 blocks in the district had sanitation coverage of less than 30%. With a sanitation coverage of only less than 21.8%, the district ranked second last among 13 districts in the state.

Intervention

The district administration strategically targeted this historically embedded issue of open defecation. The very first notable intervention in Swacch Bharat Mission is data purification. Data purification was a necessary step as it removed large amounts of ghost data from the IMIS database. This process gave the district administration a more accurate picture of the sanitation situation of the district. Thus, it was made easier to build a systematic plan to address the problem. One of the most significant initiatives in the district that actually triggered the large scale construction of IHHLs and made sanitation a mass movement was the famed 100 Hours Programme. In this programme, 10,000 Individual Household Latrines were constructed in a mere 100 Hours (March 10th to 14th, 2017) to declare 71 Gram Panchayats Open Defecation Free. The Andhra Pradesh Government’s flagship programme Stree Nidhi Credit Cooperation provided timely, affordable and interest-free loans of `12,000 to each beneficiary for the construction of toilets. Bringing in Stree Nidhi ensured that all women-headed and single women’s households had a toilet of their own by the end of the campaign.

Impact

IHHL coverage in Vizianagaram grew between 2014 and 2018 from 11.42% to 73.37%. The district saw exponential growth in IHHL coverage in 2017, of close to 48%. Working efficiently with a combination of excellence in performance, sustainability and transparency, the district improved its rank from 674th to 217th in a short period. 

Source : Aspirational Districts for WEB