The Modi government completing one year in office is the right occasion to take a look at the much-publicised Swacch Bharat Abhiyan. But the question is: how do we measure the success of a programme such as Swachh Bharat Abhiyan? Or for that matter, the success of any government scheme?
Which is the correct way to gauge it — the amount spent on a scheme, or the number of celebrities involved in the scheme, or the awareness created?
In this context, it is perhaps relevant to build a performance evaluation index; an attempt was made by us, a team of four from the Indian School of Business, as part of the Bharti Institute of Public Policy, to prepare an outcome-based performance index at a national level, that could then be customised to suit the needs and priorities of every individual State.
Hence, we developed cleanliness categories along these five directions, with 10 general indices, combining international and customised Indian standards.
A grading system has been put in place, to evaluate how clean a category is with a moving average system in place, therefore the indices would hopefully help every state better its previous annual score.
Ten basic and generic cleanliness indices — litter index, toilet index, stagnant water index, sewerage drainage index etc. — were developed, a combination of which with appropriate weights allocated to each measures every cleanliness category.
For example, higher weight is given to the toilet index of an educational institute than to that of a public bus stand. The grading system is based on the current average of the country; and as the average increases, the grading becomes more and more stringent, and the states are expected to improve their cleanliness standards as well.
Several innovative and cost-effective technologies could be used to monitor and measure cleanliness.
Metrics to evaluate change in perception of cleanliness is also essential: not only to encourage more and more citizens to follow clean practices (concept of social proof), but also to regenerate related industries, such as the tourism industry, that have not performed to their full potential because of a perception of an unclean India.
The target audience for the metrics would be three-fold: residents, NRIs and foreigners; each has a different attitude and expectation towards what defines a clean India, and it is, therefore, mandatory to have weights and metrics customised to the mental models of the target audience keeping the larger objective of the final goals of the SBA in mind.
Do the right thing The current government would, therefore, do well to delve deep into the performance evaluation of this campaign; not only would this prove to be a talking point for the ruling party itself, it would also re-establish a sense of purpose among the party workers as well.
Again, States should be encouraged to customise the index to suit their own current standards and priorities, and the Centre must ensure that the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan does not remain merely a one-day activity for media coverage, but a sustainable initiative that the people of the country can take pride in.
As they say, what gets measured gets done. We hope the SBA gets measured and gets done as well.
The writers are with the Indian School of Business