Swachhata Pakhwada

About Swachhata Pakhwada: 

• It is an initiative launched in April, 2016 under the Swachh Bharat Mission.
• Objective: It was launched with the objective of bringing a fortnight of intense focus on the issues and practices of Swachhata by engaging the central government ministries/departments.
• Aim: It aims to include all ministries and departments through a common programme to contribute for Swachh Bharat Mission.
• An annual calendar is pre-circulated among the ministries to help them plan for the Pakhwada activities.
• The ministries observing Swachhata Pakhwada are monitored closely using the online monitoring system of Swachhata Samiksha where action plans, images, videos related to Swachhata activities are uploaded and shared.
• For the Pakhwada fortnight, observing ministries are considered as ‘Swachhata Ministries’ and are expected to bring qualitative swachhata improvements in their jurisdictions.

Key facts about Swachh Bharat Mission

• The Indian government launched the swachh bharat mission on October 2, 2014.
• The mission covered all rural and urban areas.
  • The urban component of the mission is implemented by the Ministry of Urban Development, and the rural component by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation.
• The programme includes elimination of open defecation, conversion of unsanitary toilets to pour flush toilets, eradication of manual scavenging, municipal solid waste management and bringing about a behavioural change in people regarding healthy sanitation practices.

Q1: What is Anaerobic treatment?

It is a proven and energy-efficient method for treating industrial wastewater. It uses anaerobic bacteria (biomass) to convert organic pollutants or COD (chemical oxygen demand) into biogas in an oxygen-free environment.

Source: Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region Launches Swachhata Pakhwada