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     | Overview: Sant Gadge Baba Campaign, A campaign for Village sustained development. Actually Maharashtra' s beloved folk hero of recent times, Gadge Maharaj had died in 1956. By a stroke of inspired genius the water supply and sanitation department launched a village cleanliness campaign and named it after the Maharaj. Sant Gadge Baba Swatchata Abhiyan or the Clean Village Campaign as it is named has infused a tremendous sense of community spirit among villages, their Panchayats and village organizations in rural Maharashtra. The Abhiyan or Campaign sponsored by the Government of Maharashtra aimed at promoting a competitive spirit among villages to create a clean environment through community self-initiatives. In May 2004, these unique campaign is become four years old. This unique effort is sponsored by the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation department without any subsidy or grants. In turn, the Government rewards winning villages at the district, division and state levels. It is definite that a silent and almost invisible social revolution has ignited the community spirit involving thousands of women, men and children, transforming, in its wake, dirt-ridden villages into islands of cleanliness. Traditional habits and ways of doing things have been challenged and social rules broken for the common betterment. The challenge was not clean up the village –build toilets, drains and access roads, but to see that the village stayed clean. Contributions trickled in from villagers themselves at first followed by donations from politicians, organizations and individuals. So mobilizing resources did not present a challenge. Beyond the prize money and the administration costs the Government incurs nothing. The Maharaj's name spurs the villagers to action. The state has set out elaborate guidelines that are to be adhered. The Abhiyan which began in Sep, 2000 as a one time programme is now an annual event. To begin with there is a 14-day drill that every participating village must go through. To show must go on At this juncture, it is crucial that the momentum of the clean village campaign is not derailed. And that officials, Gram Panchayats, community groups and people who contributed to make this a success, feel their job is over. And that villages who did not appear in the winners list, have a slide back. Good practices by communities do not make good stories for the media. However, they can become visible demonstration sites for other communities . For the mass level campaign to be continued and scaled up, many more villages need to be motivated to enter the campaign. The immediate challenge is that community systems and structures which have evolved, need to be sustained. The more visible results such as - community toilets, clean roads, garbage collection points and creation of water harvesting structures are important community innovations.It is important to look beyond the physical infrastructure built and understand how the state sponsored campaign came to be owned by people. The message of the Campaign is "Prosperity Through Cleanliness". The new development strategy emerged through the Programme is "People initiate, Government supports". It also taught a lesson to the State planners that
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Copyright RSPMU,
WSSD. GoM
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