What is ODF, ODF+ and ODF – Burning Issues – Free PDF

What is Swach Bharat Abhiyan

In October 2014, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was instituted to achieve the vision of ‘clean India’ and eliminate the practice of open defecation by October 2, 2019

What is Swach Bharat Abhiyan

To accelerate the efforts to achieve universal sanitation coverage and to put the focus on sanitation, the Prime Minister of India had launched the Swachh Bharat Mission on 2nd October 2014.
Under the mission, all villages, Gram Panchayats, Districts, States and Union Territories in India declared themselves “open-defecation free” (ODF) by 2 October 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, by constructing over 100 million toilets in rural India.
To ensure that the open defecation free behaviours are sustained, no one is left behind, and that solid and liquid waste management facilities are accessible, the Mission is moving towards the next

Phase II of SBMG i.e ODF-Plus.

ODF Plus activities under Phase II of Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen) will reinforce ODF behaviours and focus on providing interventions for the safe management of solid and liquid waste in villages.

ODF, ODF+ and ODF++

At the time Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was launched, India had 450 million people defecating in the open, which according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) accounted for 59 per cent of the 1.1 billion people in the world practising open defecation.

What is ODF?

In October 2014, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was instituted to achieve the vision of ‘clean India’ and eliminate the practice of open defecation by October 2, 2019

ODF Definition UnderSwachh Bharat Mission (SBM) Gramin (Rural):

• The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) defined ODF as:

ODF is the termination of faecal oral transmission, defined by:

1. No visible faeces found in the environment/village.
2. every household as well as public/community institutions using safe technology option for disposal of faeces.

• The ministry even issued a checklist of 12 parameters for gram panchayats/villages to be declared ODF. The protocols have been divided into two categories – household survey and village survey.

Factors considered in the Household Survey for ODF declaration:

1. Access to toilet facility
2. 100 per cent usage
3. Fly-proofing of toilet
4. Safe septage disposal
5. Hand-washing before meals
6. Hand-washing with soap after defecation
7. Availability of soap and water in or near the toilet
8. No visible faeces found in the environment/village
9. Proper usage of school toilet
10. Safe confinement of excreta in school toilet
11. Proper usage of anganwadi toilet
12. Safe confinement of excreta in anganwadi toilet

• For a village to be ODF, answers to the household survey questions 1 to 4 and village survey questions 8 to 12 need to be ‘yes’.
• For ODF verification, the MODW&S has guidelines which are meant for guidance of states to evolve their own mechanism for ODF verification, based on the ODF definition issued by Government of India.

ODF Declaration Process For Rural India:

• Once toilets are constructed as per the baseline demand and the practice of open defecation is eradicated, the village sanitation committee lead by the head of the village passes ODF proposal and sends it to the district.
• District Magistrate (DM) who is the head of District Sanitation Committee (DSC) gets district level verification done by the district level team.
• If no case of open defecation is found, DM declares a village ODF and marks it on SBM dashboard.
• After this, the Commissioner level team examines the proposal of DM, gets physical verification of village done and if no open defecation is seen, he verifies and approves the ODF status.
• On verification by commissioner level team, directorate of SBM at state level declares village ODF.
• To cross verify the ODF status, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation and Directorate of SBM at state conduct a random survey of villages by the third party. Reverification of ODF villages happens every six month.

ODF Definition For Urban India:

• A city or ward can be notified as ODF if, at any point of the day, not a single person is found defecating in the open. To declare a city or ward ODF, SBM Urban has listed out some necessary infrastructure and regulatory conditions to be achieved, which are:

1. All households that have space to construct a toilet, have constructed one.
2. All occupants of those households that do not have space to construct toilet have access to a community toilet within a distance of 500 meters.
3. All commercial areas have public toilets within a distance of 1 kilometer.
4. Details of all Individual household toilets (IHHL) constructed from 2011 onwards will have to mandatorily be uploaded on the SBM Urban portal
5. Pictures of all functional community and public toilets in the city, irrespective of the date of construction, will have to mandatorily be uploaded on the SBM Urban portal.

• Cities that have been certified ODF at least once on the basis of the ODF protocols laid down by MoHUA shall be eligible to declare themselves as SBM-ODF+ & SBM-ODF++ and apply for this certification.

ODF+ and ODF++

• The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MDWS) considers ODF+ to be a state where there are no faeces in the environment and everybody is using safe technology option for disposing faeces, AND solid and liquid resources are managed along with menstrual hygiene (italicised part is for ODF+).
• The ODF++protocol adds the condition that “faecal sludge/septage and sewage is safely managed and treated, with no discharging and/or dumping of untreated faecal sludge/septage and sewage in drains, water bodies or open areas.”

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