Among the many quite a few tales being written about Ratan Tata, I believed I might share a lesser-known curiosity of his — sanitation — and the way he made a big contribution to the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship programme, which has simply celebrated 10 years of profitable implementation. I used to be then, throughout 2016-2020, the secretary within the Ministry of Ingesting Water and Sanitation, accountable for implementing the programme.
We realised early that altering the entrenched behaviour of open defecation practised by thousands and thousands in rural India was going to be difficult. The PM’s imaginative and prescient was that of a jan andolan, communities understanding the significance of sanitation and taking the duty of constructing their villages open defecation-free (ODF). With a number of hundred districts within the nation and about six lakh villages, this was going to be a gargantuan process. In fact, the PM at all times thinks and acts huge.
After learning the state of affairs, my crew and I realised that an efficient approach of triggering a change in behaviour was to have educated boots on the bottom at two ranges — one, younger professionals positioned on the district degree and educated in behaviour change communication to advise district authorities and likewise supervise and information village actions and two, swachhagrahis (village motivators), on the village degree to straight work together with particular person households on sanitation. Whereas the swachhagrahis had been being satisfactorily recruited by district authorities, we had been struggling to recruit younger professionals on the district degree.
Enter the Tata Trusts and Ratan Tata. The PM throughout one in every of his Mann Ki Baat radio addresses, made an attraction to corporates and different organisations to voluntarily help the SBM by offering younger professionals. The Tata Trusts instantly responded by asking how they might assist. I used to be requested to go to Mumbai and make a presentation to theirboard headed by Ratan Tata. We had estimated that we would want to put one younger skilled in about 600 districts throughout the nation. I had ready a price estimate and a deployment plan for our proposal.
Rata Tata was courteous on the presentation however nonetheless, alongside along with his fellow board members, requested robust questions. One in every of them associated to the Tata Trusts’ earlier unsuccessful expertise of parachuting younger professionals into rural India with out satisfactory onboarding, lack of help by the district equipment and, crucially, lack of private consideration by the perennially busy district collector. I managed to persuade him that this authorities was dedicated to delivering outcomes on the bottom and that the younger professionals would first be onboarded and educated by us on the ministry and deployed within the states after coordinating intently with states and districts.
After some forwards and backwards on the assembly, my proposal was accredited by him. He additionally graciously accepted our invitation to come back to Delhi for the launch of the programme, which he did together with my minister. Simply earlier than the formal launch occasion, we had a proud second when he got here to our workplace and had a casual interplay with my crew. He was even type sufficient to reward our espresso.
Whereas the Tata Trusts took on the duty of recruiting roughly 600 younger professionals, appropriately named Zila Swachh Bharat Preraks or ZSBPs, the ministry had the equally onerous duty of managing and mentoring this cohort of proficient children, many from prestigious administration and engineering tutorial backgrounds. Luckily, our ministry crew, headed by a Joint Secretary, dealt with this process with aplomb and coordinated intently with states and districts, mentored the ZSBPs within the subject, dealt with their issues with sensitivity, stored their morale excessive and monitored their outputs.
The younger ZSBPs made a giant contribution to enhancing the standard of the SBM by sustaining the give attention to behaviour change, supervising village-level swachhagrahis and retaining the village, block and district officers within the loop on progress made on villages changing into ODF. Gaining access to the district Collector, and requesting for his or her help when required made a giant distinction.
Multiple “batch” of ZSBPs was recruited for us by the Tata Trusts. Whereas Ratan Tata understood the significance of entry to sanitation and its influence on the safety and dignity of ladies and ladies together with the well being advantages for youngsters, his fast determination to stroll the discuss and commit vital monetary sources to the ZSBP programme was game-changing. As highlighted by the PM in his condolence message: “He was on the forefront of championing causes like schooling, healthcare, sanitation, animal welfare, to call just a few”. For us, his help to the Swachh Bharat Mission was transformational.
The author is former Secretary of the Division of Ingesting Water and Sanitation, Authorities of India and is at the moment India’s Govt Director on the World Financial institution. Views are private
