11 Years Later, Swachh Bharat Progress Mired In Weak Verification

The first phase of the programme focused on making India open-defecation-free (ODF) by 2019, including construction of 100 million household toilets. Over 119 million individual household latrines and 260,000 community sanitary complexes were built, leading the government to declare India open defecation-free by October 2019. But usage remained poor, as IndiaSpend had reported in 2019.

With over Rs 66,000 crore invested, this phase relied on a standardised toilet design that often ignored India’s diverse geographical, topographical, and hydrogeological conditions.

In the second phase, the government set out to achieve ODF-Plus status for all villages, which broadly entails three indicators: ODF sustainability; solid and liquid waste management; and visual cleanliness. The status was to be independently verified at two levels. Further, it emphasised behaviour change, social inclusion, and community-driven systems supported by local volunteers (Swachhagrahis) and technology-enabled monitoring to foster self-sustaining, cleaner rural environments.

As of October 1, about 97% of villages have been certified ODF-Plus. Villages that meet all three criteria are termed ‘ODF-Plus Model’ villages. While four in five villages (480,412 of 586,944) have been declared ‘ODF-Plus Model’ villages, 22% of these have not completed even the first round of verification, and 89% have yet to complete a second verification, government data show.

“SBM-2 introduced the ODF Plus framework, which requires not only household toilets but also safe waste disposal systems--such as functional septic tanks or drainage networks,” says Uzra Sultana, programme manager at Arghyam. “The mission expanded its scope to include faecal sludge management, liquid waste management (e.g., greywater), solid waste management, and waste-to-energy initiatives like biogas generation.

“However, this multi-goal approach has placed a heavy burden on implementing agencies due to limited funding, complex human resource demands, and the challenge of simultaneously meeting diverse targets across waste streams,” she added.

Declarations outpace verification

Phase II of the Swachh Bharat Mission is supported by an outlay of Rs 1,40,881 crore, of which the Union government contributes 37%, under the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation.

Villages are classified as per their performance on the three ODF-Plus indicators:

• When ODF sustainability, and either solid OR liquid waste management are met, a village is considered “aspiring”;
• “Rising” is when the village has ODF sustainability and both solid AND liquid waste management;
• “Model” status entails sustaining ODF-plus, both solid and liquid waste management, along with visible cleanliness and awareness messaging

Certification requires a Gram Sabha declaration and third-party verification, especially for ‘model’ status.

The SBM dashboard, as of October 1, shows that 82% are ‘Model’ villages, 14% are ‘Aspiring’, and the rest are ‘Rising’. Only a third of India’s 753 districts have achieved ‘ODF Plus’ status, which means over 500 districts have not achieved universal ODF sustainability.

Further, only about 377,000 Model villages have been independently verified, raising questions about sustainability of the status.

“A village must fulfill approximately seven to eight parameters to declare itself ODF Plus, after which an independent verification is conducted--by district or state authorities in rural areas, and by ministry-appointed evaluators in urban areas,” notes Anjor Bhasker, faculty at the Azim Premji University. “Two rounds of verification ensure sustained compliance rather than temporary implementation, leading to certification as ODF Plus and recognition as a model village, panchayat, or city.”

Overall, India has 103,627 ‘Model’ villages without verification. Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh account for half of these.

Sikkim and Lakshadweep have been declared as ‘Model’ states–meaning that all its villages have been declared ‘ODF-Plus Model’ villages. But Sikkim is yet to verify 17 of its 400 villages. Kerala and Chhattisgarh saw 98% and 97% verification rates, respectively.

Manipur has declared 26 of its 2,567 villages as ‘Model’, but not one of them has been verified. Himachal Pradesh has a 25% verification rate while Jharkhand has 27%.

Experts point out that there is opacity in the process of verification. “Details such as which organisations conduct the verifications, their reporting methods, and the specific findings are not readily available to the public,” Bhasker says. “This lack of transparency makes it difficult to assess the causes of the backlog. Many villages completed their self-declarations recently, toward the end of SBM Phase II, so verification efforts may still be underway, he explained. The scheme mandates verification within 90 days of declaration.

“First-round verifications may have identified issues that villages need time to address before the second assessment. The exact cause of the backlog remains unclear due to insufficient public information on the implementation of the verification process,” he added.

“High ODF-Plus declarations without independent verification don’t confirm whether toilets are actually being used or if supporting infrastructure—like water supply, septic systems or waste processing facilities—exists and functions,” Bhasker says.

“In rural areas, verification can be done by the state government through the officials themselves. In such a case, this is akin to officials verifying their own progress, which creates little incentive to report failures or maintenance gaps. For communities, this can mean a village marked “clean” on paper is still struggling with untreated solid or liquid waste, dysfunctional Dry Waste Collection Centres (DWCCs) or Composting Facilities or even a return to open defecation," he added.

Funding gaps and planning shortfalls

Experts also point to under- and or overutilisation of funds as one of the reasons for the backlog in verification, which is mostly the result of lack of planning at block level. Under Swachh Bharat Grameen 2.0, northeastern and hilly states receive 90% of funding from the Union government, while other states receive 60%. However, between 2020-21 and 2022-23, less than 50% of the Union government funds were actually released to states, as per this budget analysis by PRS Legislative Research.

Fund release is conditional on states contributing their share and demonstrating utilisation, but delays and procedural roadblocks are common, as per the report. In 2022-23, no central funds were released to Haryana, Maharashtra, Odisha and Telangana, while 10 other states delayed releasing their own share by 67 to 165 days, citing budget re-appropriations and resource constraints.

These delayed releases and fragmented transfers translate into erratic spending patterns at the state level. Some states show utilisation well above annual releases, reflecting reliance on past balances or reporting overlaps, while others show low utilisation, according to government data tabled in the Rajya Sabha.

“Planning for waste management infrastructure often faces significant limitations, including restricted funding and a lack of available space for treatment facilities,” said Sultana of Arghyam. She explained that operations and maintenance plans, including cost recovery mechanisms, are rarely integrated at the planning stage, and implementation usually responds only to immediate needs rather than long-term strategies.

“It is uncommon for 100% of households in a village to be included in a waste management system. Coverage often ends up at 50%, 70%, or 80% because of scattered households, difficult terrain, or newly constructed homes,” she said.

Further, the scale of open defecation in the country may be underestimated depending on questions asked on sanitation behaviour, as IndiaSpend reported in July 2021. In surveys, when each individual in a household is questioned, they find more instances of open defecation in contrast to asking one member to report on the toilet behaviours of all household members, we had reported.

Sultana noted that while guidelines encourage sustainable business models such as revenue from treated water or selling processed sludge as manure, these are rarely implemented, with most villages focusing only on treatment. She pointed out that there are a few successful examples, including systems that have been running for a decade and generating income through fisheries, leased ponds, or compost sales.

For instance, she pointed to Samana Bahu village in Haryana’s Karnal, which treats its greywater and distributes it using solar pumps. In Patia village in Gujarat’s Kachhchh, the decentralised wastewater treatment system has enabled reuse of greywater on three acres of gram panchayat land.

Health gains, but SDG risks remain

Without fully functional waste treatment systems and sustained infrastructure, sanitation gains risk being undermined, leaving communities exposed to waterborne diseases and hindering India’s progress toward SDG 6.

Poor sanitation and open defecation are significant contributors to stunting, a condition closely tied to repeated diarrhoeal infections caused by unsafe water and inadequate sanitation infrastructure as IndiaSpend reported in 2017. A study from 2020 using data from the National Family Health Survey found that 12% households reported diarrhoea in the previous two weeks and 2.4% showed clustering--defined as more than one under-five children affected.

Improving sanitation levels, and with that ensuring individual household toilets, is a key factor in reducing the spread of infectious diseases such as cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery and hepatitis A. For children under five, diarrhoea is the second leading cause of death, IndiaSpend reported in July 2017.

“There are state-level reports showing improvements in cases of diarrhoea, typhoid, and meningitis--waterborne diseases that have declined with better sanitation,” says Sultana. “These reports also track parameters such as access to handwashing facilities and toilets, and on this basis, states are ranked. I found and downloaded reports for the five states I studied, and they clearly show how safe sanitation has improved health indicators."

Untreated sewage continues to flow into rivers and seep into groundwater, while unsafe emptying of septic tanks leaves the most vulnerable communities at risk of manual scavenging, as per the guidelines of the SBM-Grameen programme. They also compromise India’s commitments under the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 6, which calls for universal access to safe water and sanitation, and requires not only toilets but also the safe management of waste and wastewater.

“First, during SBM 1.0, sanitation was run as a national campaign with clear targets, strong district- and block-level focus, and active involvement of panchayat leaders,” says V.R. Raman, executive director of CBGA. “That level of mobilisation is missing now, and without regular reviews and accountability at the district and block level, sanitation tends to slip off the agenda. Second, while India made a big leap in sanitation coverage, from around 31% to 70% or more, the latest Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for the SDGs highlights gaps in safely managed sanitation at the rural level.

“The challenge is that earlier momentum is slipping, as government attention has shifted to drinking water programmes, which themselves risk slippages once handed over to panchayats without strong financing or maintenance systems. Infrastructure was built, but without community ownership and long-term processes, many schemes are falling back, underscoring the need to link sanitation more directly to public and environmental health outcomes,” says Raman.

IndiaSpend reached out to Swapna Devireddy, Director of the Swachh Bharat Mission and Magan Lal, under secretary for SBM 2.0; Koshi Kapil, Mission Director for SBM in Sikkim; and the Jharkhand state SBM officials for their views on ODF-Plus verification, gaps in waste management, and the sustainability of sanitation gains.

Specifically, we sought their responses to questions on the verification process, alignment between declared and verified figures, implementation of solid and liquid waste management systems, and measures to link ODF-Plus certification to long-term public health outcomes. We will update the story when we receive their responses.

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