Swachh Bharat Mission: Addressing Open Defecation at Massive Scale in Rural India (B)

This case is the first of a three-part series that follows the managerial, strategic, and communication decisions of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) or Clean India Mission, the flagship program of the Government of India to eliminate the practice of open defecation (i.e., not using a toilet) from 2014 to 2019. As of 2014, 550 million people in India practiced open defecation. This problem posed a massive public health hazard and economic drag for the country. Written from an insider’s perspective, the cases center on the decisions made by a new Secretary of India’s Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, who was hired to implement the SBM – focused on changing the behaviour of over 500 million people from open defecation to the usage of toilets. Case B discusses the start-up challenges for SBM, including implementation in India’s complex federal system, workplace culture, and the deep-rooted behaviour of open defecation in rural India and the managerial and communication strategies formulated to address them. The case concludes by framing the difficulties and challenges faced by the mission as it got scaled up.