Citizen Assessment of 2 years of Swachh Bharat in Urban India

Background

Swachh Bharat Online Citizen Communities were initiated in October 2014 by LocalCircles (www.localcircles.com) and Swachh Bharat Mission, Ministry of Urban Development in October, 2014. Since then, over a period of 12 months, over 350,000 citizens have become part of the various Swachh Bharat citizen communities across more than 60 cities of India. The National Community called “Swachh Bharat” enables Swachh Bharat Mission to easily seek collective citizen inputs on various aspects of Swachh Bharat policy and state of things in real time. Based on collective citizen inputs, over 100 whitepapers/checklists have been generated in the last two years. These cover subjects like Municipal Reforms to Civic Sense Basics for every Indian, engaging citizens in every aspect of Swachh Bharat policy making. In addition to the Swachh Bharat National Circle, over 150 city level Swachh Bharat online communities are now active, bringing citizens together at a local level for discussion, collective on ground cleanliness action and to provide a platform for collective citizen engagement with the urban local bodies in these cities.

Survey Platform and Demographics

The national survey on two years of Swachh Bharat was conducted in the Swachh Bharat National Circle to gauge the impact and performance of Swachh Bharat in a transparent manner. The objective was to understand what’s working and where efforts need to be put in going forward. On an average, over 15,000 citizens participated in each poll with over 250,000 total votes in the survey thereby making it the largest civic survey of its kind. The local city level surveys were done in the respective Swachh Bharat local circles in 60 cities across India. Approximately 60% of the citizens participated in both the national survey and the city survey while 40% of the citizens were unique to the city survey.

Approximately 62% of respondents were males while 38% were females. The participants were 42% from Tier 1 cities, 30% from Tier 2 cities and 28% from Tier 3 Cities and Rural areas.

Citizen Survey Key Highlights

• • 61% citizens believe there is some improvement in cleanliness in their neighbourhood and city as a result of Swachh Bharat
• • 40% citizens believe Civic Sense has improved as a result of Swachh Bharat Mission
• • 4 states show visible improvement (30% or more improvement) in cleanliness, 11 states now show marginal improvement (10-30%) and 4 states show limited or no improvement
• • Municipal engagement, reforms, delivery and enforcement is critical to the long term success of the mission and is not happening effectively

National Survey Results

The national survey covered various aspects of Swachh Bharat including Public Toilet availability, Civic Sense improvement, Waste Management, Municipal Enforcement, Municipal Delivery and Responsiveness, Overall Cleanliness Levels of Cities, Fogging and association of Swachh Bharat to Swasth Bharat, Impact on Children and Participation by Citizens. Below are the key highlights of the 2 years of Swachh Bharat Survey - 2016

1. 1) 20% citizens believe availability of public toilets in their city has improved since Swachh Bharat
2. 2) 44% citizens believe Swachh Bharat has been effective in making School Children aware and impart values like cleanliness and civic sense
3. 3) 40% citizens believe Civic Sense has improved in the last 2 years as a result of Swachh Bharat efforts
4. 4) 89% citizens believe that cleanliness has a role in controlling vector borne diseases
5. 5) 46% citizens believe lack of Citizen Civic Sense is the biggest bottle neck to achieving cleaner neighbourhoods and cities
6. 6) 41% citizens believe lack of municipal delivery and enforcement is the biggest bottleneck to achieving cleaner neighbourhoods and cities
7. 7) Only 12% citizens say their municipal corporation is effectively conducting fogging, taking care of water bodies to control vector borne diseases
8. 8) Only 23% believe their municipality has become more responsive to complaints on garbage collection, waste disposal and street cleaning
9. 9) Only 18% citizens believe their municipality is engaged in driving cleanliness and civic sense awareness initiatives on the ground
10. 10) 71% citizens say they do not have phone numbers of municipal staff/councillors
11. 11) 87% citizens say they frequently observe plastic, hazardous or C&D waste being dumped in their city along with garbage and at non-designated spots
12. 12) 43% citizens say they will participate in meetings with municipal officials as called upon, 13% are willing to participate weekly and 40% are willing to participate monthly
13. 13) 85% believe online and offline engagement by municipality with citizens must be made mandatory for them to receive Swachh Bharat funds
14. 14) 67% believe overall reforms and upgrade of municipalities is needed and critical to deliver Swachh Bharat
15. 15) 61% believe there is some improvement in cleanliness in their neighbourhood and city as a result of Swachh Bharat. Only 9% amongst the 61% find the improvement to be significant (more than 30% improvement)

Overall, Swachh Bharat is now showing its positive impact in urban India. The big positives from this year’s national survey is that 40% citizens believe that Civic Sense is improving as a result of Swachh Bharat efforts. The second big positive is that 61% citizens feel their neighbourhood and city is cleaner than what it was pre Swachh Bharat. While only 9% of the 61% believe that the improvement is significant and more than 30%, it is still a step up from the only 21% who found it cleaner at 12 months of Swachh Bharat and 52% who found it cleaner at 18 months of Swachh Bharat. However, the biggest area requiring immediate focus according to the citizens is the municipalities. The municipalities, according to citizens are largely disengaged from the mission and even the citizens, many of who are still keen to participate and willing to make themselves available to work with municipal officials. Per citizens, poor municipal enforcement, lack of processes/systems, corruption, delays, responsiveness of municipalities and lack of accountability are issues that until effectively addressed will continue to be a bottleneck in the long term success of Swachh Bharat.

State and City Survey Results

In the city level survey, approximately 60 cities and 19 states were covered. The surveys suggest that out of the 19 states, 4 states are showing visible improvement in cleanliness of 30% or more while 11 states are showing marginal improvement of 10-30%. The remaining 4 states according to citizens have limited or no impact of Swachh Bharat. The top states performing on Swachh Bharat are Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, and Maharashtra. The top cities performing on Swachh Bharat primarily come from these states. There are also some cities that have shown visible improvement despite their state only showing marginal improvement. These include cities like Belgaum, Mangalore, Udaipur, Coimbatore, Madurai, Hyderabad, Dehradun and Kolkata.

The detailed national poll results are given below followed by state and city poll results.

National Poll Demographic Details

About Swachh Bharat City Circles

Swachh Bharat Online Citizen Communities are now available in over 150 cities of India. These communities allow citizens in these cities to get and stay connected for the cause of Swachh Bharat. The urban local bodies of these cities can access their respective city community to seek citizen inputs, run surveys, organize events like cleanliness drives, citizen feedback sessions etc on fingertips. These communities started by LocalCircles (www.localcircles.com) and Swachh Bharat Mission, Ministry of Urban Development in October 2014 promote participative governance in its truest sense. For more details visit http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=110405