this story originally appeared in on sep 15 2017by m venkaiah naidu over the last seventy years india has made tremendous progress in its development journey yet huge challenges remain one of them is lack of adequate sanitation gandhiji had once famously said ldquosanitation is more important than political freedomrdquo this statement underscores the criticality of sanitation in society it is worth noting that poor sanitation has been one of the causes of diarrhoea killing over 100000 children every year it also leads to physical and cognitive stunting in children and a potentially less productive future workforce open defecation is also an issue that is inextricably connected to human dignity especially the dignity and safety of women studies have shown that good sanitation can save rs 50000 per year per family we are aiming at a new india an india which is clean skilled educated healthy prosperous and inclusive the lsquoswachhta hi sevarsquo campaign being launched on 15th of september to mark the third anniversary of the lsquoswachh bharatrsquo programme is a major step to address the poor sanitary conditions across the country impacting the health and overall quality of life of the people while the union government the state governments and the local bodies provide the overall direction and leadership the pace and quality of implementation will considerably be enhanced and the gains will be sustained only if the people get actively involved three years ago when it was realised that over half of the country still defecated in the open nearly 70 years after independence it was clearly unacceptable it was rightly seen as an impediment to our aspirations of becoming an economic superpower on august 15 2014 the prime minister gave a clarion call to the nation from the ramparts of the red fort to collectively fight filth and open defecation change old habits and achieve a swachh bharat by october 2 2019 the 150th birth anniversary of gandhiji three years on the sbm has made significant progress and has successfully captured the collective imagination of the nation the number of indians defecating in the open is estimated to have reduced to 30 crore from about 55 crore in 2014 over 235000 villages 1300 cities 200 districts and 5 states have been declared open defecation free odf all villages along the banks of the ganga have been declared odf over 50 of urban wards have door to door collection of municipal solid waste almost 5 crore toilets have been constructed in rural and urban areas all this in less than three years but there is still more work to be done the sbm is at a tipping point from where a major push is expected to spiral it into a massive jan andolan a peoplersquos movement the prime minister has made another call to the nation to participate in the ldquoswachhta hi sevardquo campaign to come out and get directly involved with the sbm by offering shramdaan for swachhta in the fortnight leading up to gandhi jayanti