Nabard launches sanitation literacy campaign

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) on Friday launched a nationwide ‘Sanitation Literacy Campaign’.

The development bank, which promotes sustainable and equitable agriculture and rural development, said an additional credit line opened with the financial institutions will improve sanitation infrastructure in the country.

The objective of the campaign, which was launched on the occasion of the 151st birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, is to create awareness to sustain behavioural change of the rural populace towards adopting good hygiene and sanitation practices.

G R Chintala, Chairman, Nabard said, “The Covid-19 pandemic has reinforced the need for greater awareness for better water, sanitisation and hygiene infrastructure and enhanced the significance of the Swachh Bharat Mission.

“This campaign will help engage with vulnerable communities that lack the right sanitation facilities and identify further funding requirements.”

The campaign would continue till January 26, 2021.

Nabard has disbursed Rs 12,298 crore so far under the Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin (SBM-G), resulting in the construction of 3.29 crore household toilets, the rural development bank said in a statement.

The bank recently announced the launch of refinance schemes for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) activities, apart from watershed and tribal development, two of the bank’s flagship development programmes.

Nabard said the Sanitation Literacy Campaign will support the Centre’s SBM-G and WASH programme to enable vulnerable rural communities to access better sanitation facilities in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Nabard will cover about 2,000 villages and map the sanitation needs of the people. Basis the findings, it will develop a strategy to provide credit facilities, mainly for construction of household toilets,” the statement said.

Nabard has also announced a special refinancing facility of Rs 800 crore in the financial year 2020-21 to fund activities such as construction of new toilets, repairs, additional toilets, retrofitting with double pit, water connection to toilets, etc.

These activities will be considered under priority sector lending for the banks as well as registered NBFC-MFIs and other MFIs (societies, trusts, etc.).