Sanitation programmes have failed to achieve targets: CAG

The country's sanitation programmes have failed to achieve the desired targets largely due to planning level weaknesses even as large-scale diversions, wastages and irregularities were detected, the CAG said today.
"...Audit clearly reveals the failure of the sanitation programmes in achieving the envisaged targets," the CAG report on performance audit of total sanitation campaign/Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan tabled in Parliament said.
The CAG pointed out that while the Swachh Bharat Mission was launched by the Prime Minister on October 2, 2014 with an aim of 100 per cent open defecation free India by 2019, before this similar targets for eradication of open defecation were set out for 2012, revised to 2017 and again set out for 2022.

"The conceptual frame-work kept changing from supply driven to demand driven and finally to 'saturation and convergence' approach, yet the lessons learnt and experimentations through this long journey do not seem to have made much impact on the sanitation status in the country," the country's top auditor said.
The CAG said its audit has brought out planning level weaknesses which were critical for the success of programme.
Nearly Rs 10,000 crore was spent on the rural sanitation programme by the Central government in the five years covered by audit and large scale diversions, wastages and irregularities were noted, it said.

"More than 30 per cent of individual household latrines were defunct/non-functional for reasons like poor quality of construction, incomplete structure, non- maintenance," it pointed out.

The CAG has also recommended ensuring data integrity
which alone can provide reliable periodic status check and timely remedial measures. It said convergence with related programmes like NRHM is necessary and an effective mechanism for independent evaluations is required to achieve desired goal of Swachh Bharat.
The first structured programme for rural sanitation, the Central Rural Sanitation Programme, was started in 1986. Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) was started with the main objective of providing access to toilets to all by 2012 and providing sanitation facilities for all schools and anganwadis by March 2013.

In 2012, TSC was further transformed in Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA) with modified objective of achieving the vision of Nirmal Bharat by 2022 thus effectively shifting the sanitation targets by nearly a decade, the report pointed out.