Days after the Narendra Modi government celebrated the fourth anniversary of its Swachh Bharat Mission, former Minister of Drinking Water and Sanitation Jairam Ramesh came out with a report card slamming the programme for failing to meet targets and the Centre for neglecting the real problem and “repeating lies” that the mission was a success.
“The Modi government’s overriding desire to show a rapid pace of toilet construction has distracted from the objective of better health outcomes in a planned and sustainable manner,” Mr. Ramesh said, flagging a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General that the toilets constructed under the mission could not be used because of lack of household water connection.
“The utter failure in providing cleanliness forced the World Bank to call implementation of the Swachh Bharat mission ‘moderately unsatisfactory’. The bank subsequently withheld instalment due towards the programme,” Mr. Ramesh said.
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Excessive focus on publicity and building toilets also meant the neglect of provisions for clean drinking water, the former Congress minister said, claiming that allocations for drinking water had been slashed since Mr. Modi took office.
‘Plain lies’
He also criticised the series of open defecation-free declarations by various state governments. Pinpointing the case of Gujarat, Mr. Ramesh said the declaration was nothing but “plain lies”.
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“Since 2017, there has been one manual scavenging death every five days. This is a human shame and criminal offence,” he said.
In 2017, official records accounted for 13,000 workers engaged in manual scavenging. But in 2018, an inter-ministerial task force counted up to 53,236 people involved in manual scavenging.
“In its rush to show dramatic progress on Swachh Bharat Mission and to somehow malign the achievements of previous government, the Modi government is blatantly deceiving the people of India,” Mr. Ramesh said.