What is Rural Sanitation?
                     What is rural 
sanitation?
Introduction
The Central Rural Sanitation 
Programme, which was started in 
1986, was one of India’s first efforts 
to provide safe sanitation in rural 
areas. This programme focussed 
mainly on providing subsidies to 
people to construct sanitation 
facilities.
Source: www.indiawaterportal.org
Raise awareness 
about sanitation
A study done by the government in 
1996-97 showed that it was more 
important to raise awareness about 
sanitation as a whole rather than to 
just provide subsidies for 
construction. This understanding 
marked the first shift in the 
programme.
Source: www.indiawaterportal.org
Total Sanitation 
Campaign (TSC) 
 In 1999, a restructured Total 
Sanitation Campaign (TSC) was 
initiated to create supply-led 
sanitation by promoting local 
sanitary marts and a range of 
technological options.
Source: www.indiawaterportal.org
Objectives
1. Accelerate sanitation coverage 
in rural areas.
2. Generate a push from the people 
to get facilities rather than 
expect the Government to do it 
(demand-led promotion).
Source: www.indiawaterportal.org
Objectives 
Continue
1. Focus on intensive education 
and awareness campaigns to 
ensure that people understand 
the need for safe sanitation.
2. Promote cost-effective and 
appropriate technologies.
Source: www.indiawaterportal.org
Improve the 
health and quality 
of life
1. Take the scheme beyond rural 
households to rural schools and 
nursery schools. Here again, the 
emphasis was placed on 
promoting good hygiene 
practices.
2. Through all the above, improve 
the health and quality of life in 
rural areas.
Source: www.indiawaterportal.org
Last Modification
The last modification of the scheme 
happened in 2012. 
It was restructured and renamed as 
the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan. With an 
intent to transform India to "Nirmal 
Bharat", the scheme's revised target 
for reaching total sanitation was 
changed from 2012 to 2022. 
Source: www.indiawaterportal.org
Understanding 
rural sanitation 
data
The Ministry of Drinking Water and 
Sanitation publishes data related to 
the rural sanitation scheme on its 
website. 
The State of Sanitation Project is an 
effort to create simple tools that will 
demystify large datasets and also 
compare it to other relevant 
datasets.
Source: www.indiawaterportal.org
Aims of the State 
of Sanitation 
project
Multiple agencies have assessed the 
status of the rural sanitation 
programme and have quantified its 
benefits over time. 
However, there have been few 
attempts to provide an online, 
concurrent monitoring mechanism to 
track the status of both the 
implementation of the scheme and 
the larger benefits from the scheme.
Source: www.indiawaterportal.org
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