Haryana govt’s cash prize scheme to promote cleanliness fails to take off

A cash reward scheme by the Haryana government to push the Swachhta mission in the state has failed to take off due to lack of funds and awareness about it.

The government had announced the Swaran Jayanti Swachhata Shehri Puraskar in July 2016. Under the scheme, the cleanest wards under municipal bodies and areas under the residents welfare associations (RWA) had to be given cash prizes ranging between ₹50,000 and ₹2 lakh.

The award scheme is meant to “motivate and create a sense of competition” among wards to “promote accelerated sanitation” and “eliminate the practice of open defecation”, as per official documents.

The scheme was announced to mark the golden jubilee year of the formation of Haryana.

The award money was supposed to be used for improving and maintaining sanitation facilities in the selected municipal wards and create community sanitation facilities there.

Though the scheme was initially announced as a monthly award scheme, it was changed to once in three months in 2018.

“No award has been given till now, but we will do it soon,” said Anand Mohan, principal secretary of Urban Local Bodies Department (ULBD) of Haryana government, which handles the scheme. Though it was announced in July 2016, the scheme remained stuck till April 2018, as the finance department did not approve the budget for it, Mohan said.

In April this year, ₹4.62crore was allotted for the awards and it was supposed to be given out on four days in the financial year: August 15, November 1, January 26 and May 1, according to official documents. But the principal secretary confirmed that no awards were given out on August 15 or November 1 this year.

A ULBD official, who is associated with the scheme, said that they have not received a single recommendation from any of the districts. “Everyone is busy with documentation for the Swachh Survekshan Survey. The deadline for filing entries is December 15. We hope to start filing nominations for the state government’s cash prize scheme after that,” the official said.

Swachh Survekshan is a panIndia survey under the Swachh Bharat Mission launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 2, 2014, to rank cities based on the degree of cleanliness.

The official also said that the conditions to apply for the award were strict when it was launched in 2016 and it was one of the reasons why the award scheme “did not work out”. Representatives of other municipal committees and the municipal council also gave a similar response.