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leAding the chAnge
Swathi K connected emotionally to the community to convince them
to end open defecation
A software engineer, Swathi K had been spread to SBM’s field force as well. Swathi
Worse still, people’s indifference had
interested in the Civil Services from
her engineering days. “I wanted to arrived to find a demoralised, demotivated
contribute to nation building,” she says. The Swachhagrahi team — primarily due to delays
Zila Swachh Bharat Prerak (ZSBP) programme in receiving remuneration. Before mobilising
gave her an opportunity to do just that. the people, Swathi had to motivate her team.
When she was deployed as a prerak to
Nagapattinam, a coastal district in Tamil Nadu, REMovIng BottLEnECKS
Swathi was excited about the opportunity. Swathi’s first job, therefore, was to ensure that
However, she soon discovered that the Swachh payments were disbursed in a timely manner.
Bharat Mission (SBM) was struggling to Funds for government initiatives in Tamil
cope with the community’s apathy towards Nadu follow a procedure. They are paid by the
sanitation issues. The fact that sanitation state to the district, which releases it to the
was essential to improving their socio- Village Panchayat Level Committees (VPLC)
economic condition was lost on the people, through the blocks for onward remittance to
and their indifference towards taking part beneficiaries. Somewhere in this process, the
in government initiatives only exacerbated Swachhagrahis’ remuneration was getting held
matters. The prevailing attitude was that up. Swathi had to foster better coordination
community development was the government’s among the district, block and panchayat
responsibility. They believed that SBM was a administrations. Once operations were
‘scheme’ wherein the government would build better coordinated at block and VPLC levels,
toilets for them; they didn’t need to make any payments began to be received on time.
effort to build these themselves. The next step was to train the
Swathi’s emphasis was on improving the emotional connection between the Swacchagrahis and
the community. She stressed the need to deliver an emotional rather than practical message
8 TATA WATER MISSION - A Tata Trusts Initiative