Jal Shakti Minister Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat launched the Swachh Survekshan Grameen 2019 (SSG 2019) in the capital today. To be instituted from August 14 to September 30, 2019, SSG 2019 will cover 17,450 villages in 698 districts across India and include 87,250 public places namely schools, anganwadi centers, public health centres, haat/bazaars/religious places, making it India’s largest rural sanitation survey. Around 2,50,000 citizens will be interviewed for their feedback as part of the survey. Citizens will also be mobilised to provide feedback on sanitation relation related issues online using an application developed for the purpose.

An independent survey agency will conduct the survey in all districts and the results will be announced based on quantitative and qualitative sanitation parameters. With over 5.8 lakh villages, 639 districts, and 32 States/UTs declared Open Defecation Free (ODF) in rural India, the country is well poised to be completely an Open Defecation Free India by October 2, 2019.

Speaking at the launch, Shri Shekhawat emphasized on the huge success of the Swachh Bharat Mission in becoming the biggest behavior change programme in the world. He shared that with SSG19, the Mission is being taken to the next level, by focusing on solid liquid waste management and plastic waste management.

Shri Rattan Lal Kataria, Minister of State for Jal Shakti, further lauded the enthusiasm shown by all stakeholders towards last year’s survey and encouraged the gathering to garner even higher momentum at the grassroots level this year.Shri Parameswaran Iyer, Secretary, Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, highlighted that this year the focus is on plastic waste disposal amongst other wastes.

A detailed protocol has been developed to guide the ranking of Districts basis their performance on key quality and quantitative parameters. The Jal Shakti Minister released the SSG 2019 logo, the SSG 2019 brochure mobile app and a dashboard for citizen’s feedback.An audio-visual campaign, featuring actor Ajay Devgan was also launched at the SSG launch event.

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