Sunday, December 14, 2025 | 12:15 AM ISTहिंदी में पढें
Business Standard
Notification Icon
userprofile IconSearch

How swachh is India? Study finds Govt data on Swachh mission is misleading

Swachh Bharat, a multi-billion-dollar programme backed by money from the government and World Bank, has a deadline of October 2019 to declare open defecation free.

swacch bharat mission, sbm, swacch bharat,
premium

Swachh Bharat mission was launched in 2014 by PM Modi

Sachin Ravikumar, Munsif Vengattil | Reuters KOPPAL/SHIKRAWA
Every morning around dawn, dozens of people gather by the dusty banks of a stream snaking through Shikrawa village, two hours south of India's capital, New Delhi, to do the same thing: defecate in the open.
 
 
"There are close to 1,600 houses in Shikrawa. And I know for a fact that some 400 of those don't have toilets," said Khurshid Ahmed, a village council official in Shikrawa, which is located in the northern state of Haryana.