Three S tages T o E nhance R ural S anitation I n India: A P lanto S cale A nd L ong - T erm V iability In rural India, about 600 million people defecate in the open. To accomplish the Swachh Bharat Mission Gram i n (SBM (G)) – the rural clean India mission was initiated for the sanitation in India . The ambitious targets of the mission was the rural sanitation under rural development programmes by the Indian government. It wants to eliminate open defecation by 2019. SBM (G) is more time - bound and results - oriented, with a focus on monitoring both outputs (access to sanitation) and outcomes (usage). There's also a greater emphasis on behaviour change ini tiatives, and states have more freedom to choose their own delivery modalities. The World Bank has given India a US$1.5 billion loan and launched a technical assistance programme to help strengthen SBM - G programme delivery institutions at the national level and in selected states design, implement, and monitor the programme. A review of the World Bank's Water and Sanitation Program (WSPprevious )'s engagement in India's rural sanitation sector was used to inform this technical assistance programme. It a sked pertinent questions about how the technical assistance it provided could be scaled up to achieve the impact and sustainability required. A three - step pathway to scale and sustainability arose as a result of the key findings, and it is now guiding the present programmatic assistance. 1. Strengthening political will and administrative commitment at the district level by identifying and empowering local sanitation champions – for example, through exposure visits and evidence - based advocacy – and addressi ng key institutional bottlenecks, such as assisting the state in developing a state - specific sanitation policy. 2. Providing technical assistance to chosen districts to demonstrate that sanitation can be delivered at a district scale and in a sustainable manner, as well as to develop district - wide techniques adapted to a specific state. 3. Assisting state governments in developing their institutional capacity to expand successful models to other districts, eventually encompassing the entire state. Betwee n 2002 and 2013, the study looked at WSP's activities in eight states (Bihar, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, and Rajasthan). This was greeted with varying degrees of success, with the Rajasthan experience prov ing especially valuable in shaping the three - step method. Success elements included the capacity to demonstrate progress by beginning work in areas that were not the poorest, so households had some money to invest in sanitation. The sanitation sector in t he state was not being split among numerous development actors. The newly - published learning note has further information about what we learned.