The mission is noted as the world's largest sanitation program. It claimed to have provided millions of people access to the toilet and brought about a change of behaviour towards its usage. Many argue that it has not eliminated open defecation as rapidly as the government claims. However, It significantly did accelerate the pace of decline in open defecation. As a result of the Swachh Bharat Mission movement, 55 crore people in rural areas changed their behaviour and started using toilets. By achieving the objectives of the Swachh Bharat Movement, water and sanitation-related diseases have been reduced significantly. Due to the reduction of open defecation (ODF), deaths due to diseases like diarrhoea and malaria have decreased in many villages, children's health and nutrition have improved, and women do not need to wait until dark to defecate. Rs. 50,000 saved per household in rural India per year through the Swachh Bharat Mission Movement.
Political sponsorship The SBM received political sponsorship from Prime Minister Modi who started talking about sanitation even before he was elected as the Prime Minister. He made a call to address the issue in his first address to the nation on the occasion of Independence day in 2014. Throughout the mission period, he continued to promote the mission through his speeches and was seen wielding the broom multiple times to clean the streets. In 2019, he
plogged on a beach in
Mamallapuram during his morning walk; he was there to attend the informal summit with
Xi Jinping, then-
General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. Other political leaders and public figures including actors and actresses, sportsmen and women, owners of large business houses were roped in as ambassadors to promote the mission. Allocations for other sectors were also drastically reduced. Though behavioural change is one of the goals of the mission, only 1% of the mission's outlay was spent on education and awareness. Most of the allocation for the category, "information, education and communication", that was to be used for awareness generation was spent towards print, radio and television advertisements.
Inappropriate containment system For lack of sewerage systems, most of the toilets constructed under the mission rely on
single pit or
twin pits or
septic systems for containment of faecal sludge. However, their appropriateness for the local context was not considered in the haste of achieving construction targets. For example, most of the 7.85 million toilets constructed at an estimated cost of INR 94,205 million in the 15 extreme flood-prone districts of Northern Bihar become unusable during the annual floods. Besides the toilet itself being inaccessible, the containment structure is also inundated with flood waters, making it unusable.
Survey results Even though the elimination of open defecation was the core objective of the mission, it was never monitored by either of the Ministries. They both kept track of toilets constructed and funds spent. Researchers found divergence between findings of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) and National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey (NARSS); both conducted by the Government only a few months apart. There is scepticism about the success of SBM, which relates to
sanitation workers. The people who make India clean, the sanitation workers, remain "invisible in the participation, process or consequences of this national level movement". In 2015, one year after the launch of the program, hundreds of thousands of Indian people were still employed as
manual scavengers in emptying
bucket toilets and pit latrines. Many continue to work on contractual arrangements without safety of their job and benefits that would accrue from a government job. The SBM has instead burdened the contractual sanitation workers to keep public places clean while keeping it voluntary for the public to deface public places by urinating, defecating or littering them. Delhi's three municipal corporations identified 543 road dust hotspots in November 2022, using mechanized road sweepers and water sprinklers to reduce dust. They submitted reports on air pollution mitigation measures to the Delhi government's green war room. Irregularities about the funds have been reported. In
Odisha hundreds of beneficiaries have filed complaints that money has been siphoned off without constructing the toilets. In
Madhya Pradesh almost half a million Swachh Bharat toilets have "vanished" in a multi-billion rupees scam. In
Bihar crores of rupees meant for Swachh Bharat Mission were siphoned off by Government officials in collusion with banks. Police complaints were filed against those who have misused Swachh Bharat funds for personal household expenses. ==Movie based on Swachh Bharat Mission==