Assessing socio-economic correlates of awareness, impact, and constraints under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

Introduction

In developing nations like India, where a sizable section of the population lives in rural regions with little access to adequate sanitation services, sanitation and hygiene are essential components of public health and human dignity. Under the direction of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Indian government initiated the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission) on October 2, 2014, in recognition of the urgent need to address these issues. In honour of Mahatma Gandhi's 150th birthday, the project sought to make India clean and free of open defecation (ODF) by 2019. To ensure the sustainability of cleaning projects, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan focuses on enhancing sanitation infrastructure, encouraging behavioural changes, and increasing community participation. The number of toilets has been built as a result of the program, which has also improved access to clean water and raised public knowledge of good hygiene. The program has also empowered women as important change agents in their communities and generated job possibilities. All things considered, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has the ability to promote cleanliness-related behavioural changes, enhance millions of people's quality of life, and promote sustainable development in rural regions. It is crucial to keep supporting and carrying out the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan throughout the country since it is an important project that has already reached important milestones.

Research methodology

The study was carried out in the Kanpur district. Two blocks, Kalyanpur and Chaubepur, were chosen at random for the study. Six settlements were purposefully chosen from the chosen blocks. From each community, twenty-five respondents were chosen at random. 150 respondents were selected. Age, educational attainment, caste, religion, type of family, size of family, type of home, occupation, yearly income, size of land holding, social participation, material possession, awareness, opinion, impact, constraints and suggestion, etc. were all used as dependent and independent variables. Statistical methods including percentage, rank order, weighted mean, standard deviation, and correlation coefficient were employed in the statistical analysis of the acquired data. Table 1 shows the distribution of respondents by age group: 43.3% of respondents were in the 30 to 40 year old age group, with an average mean of 35 and a standard deviation of 3. 36.7% were in the 40 to 50 year old age group, with an average mean of 44 and a standard deviation of 3. 10.0% were in the 50 year old age group, with an average mean of 54 and a standard deviation of 2 and 10.0% were in the up to 30 year old age group, with an average mean of 24 and a standard deviation of 3. Table 3 shows the distribution of respondents by family size 80.7% of respondents belonged to small families with up to four members average mean 3 and standard deviation 1, followed by medium families with five to eight members average mean 5 and standard deviation 1 and large families with nine or more members average mean 8 and standard deviation 1. Thus, it may be inferred that most respondents had a family of up to four people. annual income was up to Rs. 50,000, followed by 25.6% from families whose annual income was between Rs. 50,000 and Rs. 1,00,000, and 2.4% from families whose mean annual income was between Rs. 1,00,000 and Rs. 1,50,000.

Age group

Educational qualification

Size of family

Types of house

Annual income

On the other hand, 1.3% of respondents were from families with an annual income of Rs. 1,50,000 or more. Table 6 shows the distribution of respondents by landholding with 75.0% of respondents having up to 2.5 acres of land (Marginal) and 22.0% having no land (Landless). However, 0.5% of respondents owned land larger than five acres (Large) and 2.5% of respondents owned land between two and five acres (Small). Therefore, it may be said that the majority of respondents were marginal landowners. 5.25 reveals the correlation coefficient between awareness about Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and independent variables was positively significant correlated with age (0.2107*), education (0.1982*), family size (0.1974*), annual income (0.2115*) of respondents at the 5% level of significance and 1.48 degree of freedom. Hence, age, education and annual income of the respondents to inspired toward Swachh Bharat Abhiyan i.e. one step towards cleanliness start from the home, Mahatma Gandhi was inspiration behind the scheme and programme started by government for making clean and green India. Similarly, awareness about open defecation was found to be positively significant correlated with education (0.2531*), annual income (0.3116*) of respondents at 5% level of significance and 1.48 degree of freedom. So, it may be concluded that education and annual income of the respondents play an important role towards change in social life, having toilets in house give security and elevate selfesteem, washing hands after using toilets by soap.

Conclusion

The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has made measurable progress in rural Kanpur by improving sanitation infrastructure, hygiene awareness, and health outcomes. However, the study demonstrates that the success, adoption rate, and awareness of the program are closely tied to socio-economic variables like education, annual income, and age. While positive opinions toward the scheme are high especially regarding improved health and community prestige persisting socio-economic disparities and traditional behavioural mind-sets remain barriers. Therefore, the study concludes that achieving complete, sustainable sanitation requires targeted interventions, continued community education, and localized support tailored to lower-income and marginalized households to ensure equitable benefits across all sections of rural society.

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