The missing pillar of Swachh Bharat: Citizen behaviour

Twelve years after the launch of the Swachh Bharat Mission, India’s sanitation story is undeniably one of the country’s most significant public policy successes. More than 100 million household toilets have been constructed under SBM-Gramin. Rural India was declared Open Defecation Free in 2019 after over 600,000 villages achieved ODF status. The mission has since shifted towards waste management, with nearly 570,000 villages attaining ODF Plus status. In urban India, over 4,500 wards have attained sanitation certifications under SBM-Urban.  

Yet, a walk through almost any Indian city reveals an uncomfortable truth. Roads swept in the morning are littered again by the evening. Municipal workers clean markets before opening hours, only for plastic cups and wrappers, food packaging, and cigarette butts to reappear within hours. This is striking, given India’s massive investment in sanitation. SBM-Gramin Phase II alone carries an outlay of about ₹1.4 trillion. 

The persistence of litter despite continuous cleaning raises a difficult question: How much more can governments do when citizens themselves continue to generate the problem? 

For decades, India's cleanliness challenge was viewed primarily as a problem of infrastructure. There were too few toilets, inadequate drainage systems, insufficient waste collection networks, and a shortage of sanitation personnel. That diagnosis was largely correct. Swachh Bharat’s success demonstrates the power of public investment and political commitment. But the nature of the challenge is changing. Today, many places suffer not from the absence of cleaning, but from the inability to stay clean. 

This distinction is important. A government can deploy sanitation workers, procure waste collection vehicles, and install public bins. It cannot place a cleaner behind every citizen.  

Behavioural economics offers a useful lens for understanding why littering persists despite awareness campaigns and municipal efforts. Contrary to popular belief, littering is rarely the result of ignorance. Most people know that dropping waste in public places is wrong. Yet they often do it anyway because human behaviour is strongly influenced by habits, convenience, and social cues. 

Studies show that people take cues from their surroundings: Clean streets deter littering, while visible litter encourages it. Researchers describe this as the power of social norms: Individuals often determine acceptable behaviour by observing what others appear to be doing. 

Countries that have successfully tackled littering illustrate this principle well. Singapore is often associated with strict fines, but enforcement alone does not explain its cleanliness.  

Launched in 1968, Singapore's ‘Keep Singapore Clean’ campaign combined infrastructure, public education and community action to tackle widespread littering. Singapore reinforced cleanliness through competitions that tapped into civic pride and status, helping transform it into a social norm.  

India could similarly publicise SBM and local cleanliness rankings through radio, billboards and municipal displays to foster healthy competition among communities.Similarly, Japan's remarkably clean streets are not the product of an army of cleaners or an abundance of public bins. Rather, citizens are socialised from an early age to treat public spaces as an extension of their own homes. 

The common thread is not infrastructure. It is culture.The encouraging news is that culture can be shaped. 

Behavioural interventions across countries have shown that relatively simple nudges can change waste disposal habits. Social norm messaging has often been found to reduce littering more effectively than conventional warnings. 

 One of the most cited examples is Robert Cialdini’s Petrified Forest Experiment in the US. Signs highlighting the widespread theft of petrified wood inadvertently increased theft by signalling that the behaviour was common.  

Fundamentally, people are strongly influenced by what they believe others are doing. Consequently, a sign that says, “X per cent of visitors dispose of their waste in bins” may be more effective than one that simply says, “Do not litter”. 

 Individuals are often surprisingly responsive to information about the behaviour of their peers. Similarly, evidence from the Netherlands suggests that public commitments can be a powerful tool for changing waste-disposal behaviour. 

 In a Rotterdam field experiment, residents were encouraged to make commitments to keeping their neighbourhood clean. The commitment-based intervention significantly reduced illegal garbage disposal, suggesting that public commitments can encourage responsible behaviour.

 A second lesson from behavioural science is that people do not respond to norms alone — they also respond to friction. Research from Europe suggests that something as simple as making bins more visible and easier to access can meaningfully improve disposal behaviour. The implication is straightforward: While citizens must do their part, governments must ensure that the right choice is also the easy choice. 

This debate must move beyond the false choice between government and citizen responsibility.  

The answer is both. A discarded wrapper may seem trivial, but across millions, its social and environmental costs are significant. Littering is a classic collective action problem: Convenience is private, while the cost is public. 

Governments, meanwhile, must ensure reliable waste collection, well-maintained bins, and public spaces that make responsible behaviour easy. 

Swachh Bharat Mission’s first phase was about building infrastructure; the next phase must build norms. Roads can be swept every morning, but staying clean requires millions of considerate choices. That, ultimately, is the frontier on which the success of Swachh Bharat will be decided.

 

                                                                                        The writer is a young professional at Niti Aayog.