NEW DELHI: Reckitt Benckiser, world’s leading consumer Health and Hygiene Company, raised the benchmark of its flagship Dettol Harpic Banega Swachh India (BSI) Campaign to drive bigger transformational change with a special focus on reaching a Healthy and Hygienic India by 2019.
This will be achieved by concerted efforts targeted under five key pillars of the campaign that include Sanitation – making India open defecation free; Hand Wash – inculcating regular hand washing practices; Air Pollution – encouraging plantation drives to help clean the air we breathe; Mere10Guz – keeping your 10 yards clean and Health – key to our future and a progressive nation.
Taking forward last year’s agenda of a holistic approach to Swachhta by promoting three key steps – Swachh Zameen, Swachh Hawa and Swachh Pani, RB continues its outreach to urge the common man to keep “Mere10Guz” – 10 yards around him sanitary and unpolluted by taking small steps in that direction.
Commenting on the development, Rakesh Kapoor, CEO, RB said, “We are extremely proud of the pioneering work we are doing under the Dettol Harpic Banega Swachh India Campaign that is driving behavior change and empowering people with better health and hygiene outcomes. Through the program, we have already directly reached 12 million Indians across 80 districts and 9 states in the country and are seeing positive results. I strongly believe that a Swachh India is a Swasth India. While much has been accomplished, there is more to do and therefore our focus going forward will be to sustain the momentum we have gained so far that will inadvertently lead to improving the general quality of lives.”
As part of behaviour change communication activations, Dettol Harpic BSI plans to expand its Hygiene and Sanitation curriculum to 6 lakh Madrasas and Gurukuls reaching out to over 7 crore school kids across multiple states in India. Additionally, the Dettol E-Curriculum will reach over 4 lakh schools by 2019. Efforts will also be made towards increased training and capacity building among school teachers to ensure effectiveness of the curriculum.
On the Swachchataa Divas i.e. October 2, 2018, RB reiterated its commitment towards driving a healthy India at the 12-hour long Cleanathon hosted by Bollywood Actor, Amitabh Bachchan. With various prominent personalities coming to the event to lend their support the conversation and share their opinions. These included Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways, Shipping and Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Government of India, Prasoon Joshi, CEO, McCann World Group India, Chairman, Asia Pacific, Dr. Imam Umer Ahmed Ilyasi, Chief Imam, All Indian Imam Organization, Parineeti Chopra, Actor, Arjun Kapoor, Actor, Vipul Shah, Director & Producer. The conversation was also stirred towards discussing:
- Success of initiatives such as Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and Banega Swachh India for access to toilets and clean, disease free water
- Preventive measures States have taken to control social ills like public urination, spitting at public places, plastic usages and littering and other violations
- Actions taken to reduce and counter air pollution such as tree plantation drives, better waste management, scaling up of public transportation and others
- With only 15% of the waste being recycled, the urgent need for better waste segregation and solutions for waste management
- Tremendous improvement seen in India- with 8 crore toilets constructed in last 4 years, 4.9 lakh villages in the country are Open Defecation Free
Celebrated Doodle Artist, Shantanu Hazarika, created an art that reflected the concept of “Swachchataa”.
Impact created as part of the Dettol Harpic Banega Swachh India in the past four years:
As a result of the community behavior change program:
- 12% increase in the number of toilets constructed in less than a year by the community itself.
- 85,000 economic working days were saved due to reduction in sickness due to poor Health and Hygiene occurring out of Diahorea
- In partnership with Jagran Pehel and water.org RB rolled out a sanitation credit facility in Parbani and Nanded districts of Maharashtra through which 5,000 loan sanctions were facilitated.
- World Toilet College was launched in Aurangabad to help train 5,000 sanitation workers in its first year
- With an aim to mitigate air pollution, RB in association with SankalpTaru and GIWA together successfully planted 200,000 trees across the states of Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. These will produce 2,36,00,000 litre of oxygen, retain 600,000 million gallons of water released into atmosphere and help with 200,000 tons of carbon offset
- In association with ASSOCHAM, RB launched an awareness program around stubble burning in (Patiala) that reached out to 211,000 people across 42,200 households in 95 villages with complete support of the State Health Minister, Pollution Control Board and the Punjab Agriculture University.
The Hygiene Index rolled out across 25 cities in India led to:
- 60% cities improving their per capita investment vis-à-vis last year in various hygiene sectors
- 52% cities improved their access to toilets and 40% cities demonstrated better utilization of funds for Behavioural change and communication activities
- Resulted in the reduction of the cases of Gastro-intestinal (GI) diseases, with 36% of the cities exhibiting improvement in the Health sector.
In partnership with Swades Foundation, built 25,000 toilets in Raigarh District in Maharashtra
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