In an unfortunate development, the Centre is likely to ask India Inc to set aside 30 per cent of its CSR spend for Swachh Bharat. The move, which is expected to help the Centre raise ₹2 lakh crore over the next three years for the programme, comes on top of a Swachh Bharat cess introduced in November 2015, which is likely to mop up ₹10,000 crore in 2016-17. If a cess has its share of problems — it’s a clever way of denying States their share of the Centre’s tax proceeds — the proposed CSR imposition is no better. Corporates should be free to set aside the stipulated 2 per cent of their net profit for social activities of their choice, so that expertise and synergy come into play. They are likely to do better at executing programmes such as ‘Digital India’ and ‘Skill India’ in which many of them are already invested as part of their core business and HR initiatives. Swachh Bharat, an ambitious effort to rid India of open defecation (and garbage) over five years, is not just about constructing more than a crore of household, community and public toilets and creating solid waste management facilities. It requires an understanding of regional and social factors to ensure that communities take to the programme — and this could lie quite outside the bandwidth of corporate India.
Swachh Bharat is, ultimately, also about political and social empowerment, particularly of Dalits and women. The programme cannot afford to sidestep the inhuman and illegal practice of manual scavenging in its pursuit of a cleaner India; in doing so, it will run into socio-political resistance. While there can be no denying the need for a war effort to end open defecation – according to the 2011 Census, 53 per cent of households do not use any toilet – for its impact on gastro-intestinal health and overall child development, it appears that the Centre has opted for a top-down, simplistic approach. The challenge is much more than merely building toilets, which corporates can certainly execute. For the mission to be successful, it needs to be integrated with a larger policy on water, urban waste management and so on. The importance of involving women’s leaders in addressing privacy concerns, both at the household level and in schools and public spaces, cannot be overemphasised. The absence of decent toilets in rural schools is a significant reason for high dropouts at the secondary stage.
This is not to say that the private sector has no role to play. Their technological inputs can make a difference. IT majors have played a role in improving the sanitation scenario in metros such as Bengaluru. But to impose Swachh Bharat is neither doing India Inc, nor the programme or society at large a favour. Squalid India, unflatteringly depicted by Katherine Mayo some 80 years back, has got to change — but there are better ways of doing it.