Swachh Bharat Mission: an integrative approach to attain public health in India

Abstract

The present study assesses the outreach of Swachh Bharat Mission(SBM)1 plan, an integrative health plan, in the light of divergence across the states of India in terms of ranking of cities in the first survey conducted by the Quality Council of India (QCI) titled 'SwachhSarvekshan'. To assess the impact of socio-economic factors and geographical disparity on the implementation of the initiative, the study employed regression analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Cleanliness scores of cities were regressed on the set of independent variables namely population below poverty line, net state domestic product (NSDP), state allocation of fund for the health initiative and literacy rates as indicators of socio-economic status along with geographical region and political party ruling as intervening variables. Empirical results exhibit that the outreach of SBM plan was affected not only by the economic status of sub-national but also by the geographical location, and the literacy rate.