49% Citizens believe their town is cleaner after Swachh Bharat Mission

New Delhi, India, April 3, 2015 – LocalCircles (https://m-www.localcircles.com/a/), India’s leading Community Social Media network today announced that it has recently concluded a community poll to measure the impact of 6 months of Swachh Bharat/Clean India Mission.

With over 20,000-25000 citizens responding to each one of the 6 poll questions, the survey was one of its kind providing key insights into the impact of Swachh Bharat, what is working and areas where work is needed. The survey was conducted in the online Swachh Bharat Circle which has close to 250,000 members across 200 towns in India and was started by Ministry of Urban Development and LocalCircles on Oct 2nd, 2014.

Here are the key takeaways from the 6 months of Swachh Bharat poll:

• 1) 63% of the citizens feel Swachh Bharat has had a positive impact on behaviour and attitude of School Children
• 2) 58% of the citizens polled have engaged in some sort of cleanliness drive with the launch of Swachh Bharat Mission
• 3) 95% believe that the Central and Local Government should take citizen inputs into policy making
• 4) 66% say that only those civic bodies/cities who execute Swachh Bharat effectively should be considered for a Smart City
• 5) 84% of the citizens say that their local Civic Body is not engaged with Citizens for Swachh Bharat Mission
• 6) 49% of the citizens believe their city is cleaner than what it was before the launch of Swachh Bharat Mission.

Overall, according to the collective view of the community, the critical need of the hour for the success of Swachh Bharat Mission is the active engagement of the local civic bodies with the Mission and the Citizens. Immediate steps must be taken towards laying out a robust mechanism for uplifting and overhauling the local civic bodies through new equipment, technology, training, recruiting new skills, establishing an accountable delivery model and strong connectivity/interface with citizens. Also, continued mass media awareness about Civic Sense Basics, Citizen Do’s/Don’t is needed to keep the citizens engaged with the Swachh Bharat Mission.

For detailed report, visit http://tinyurl.com/SwachhBharat-6monthpoll

To participate in the Swachh Bharat Circle, visit http://tinyurl.com/SwachhBharat-NationalCircle

About Swachh Bharat Circle - The Swachh Bharat Circle is an online citizen community started on Oct 2, 2014 by the Ministry of Urban Development in partnership with LocalCircles to enable citizen and community participation in Swachh Bharat. The national Swachh Bharat circle with approximately 250,000 citizens enables knowledge sharing and facilitates citizen participation in policy making and governance related to sustained cleanliness, sanitation and inclusive urban development in India. In addition to the national circle, there are over 60 local Swachh Bharat circles enabling citizens to come together at a city/constituency level for cleanliness drives and working with their local civic bodies for Swachh Bharat.