Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs partnered with Microsoft to deploy project Sangam to train municipal functionaries across India on Swachh Bharat e-Learning Portal (https://swachhbharat.azurewebsites.net/). The Swachh Bharat e-Learning Portal was launched in 2015. The platform hosts 172 modules on various topics covering sanitation and waste management. More than 88,000 municipal employees have actively used the platform and successfully completed over 8 Lakh certifications. On 7th March 2019, Ministry in partnership with Microsoft launched mobile version of the e-Learning platform for the purpose of engaging citizens. The pedagogy is primarily driven by showcasing ULBs in India where a best practice has been accomplished, which other ULBs can learn from and replicate.
Capacity Augmentation of Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) is one of the key objectives of the Mission. Successful implementation and long term sustainability of the Swachh Bharat Mission goals is dependent upon the ULBs’ capacity to lead and sustain the initiative. With new, affordable and innovative sanitation and waste management solutions available in the marketplace, the need to train ULB officials is very high to ensure long term sustainability of Open Defecation Free (ODF) mandate and effective Solid Waste Management (SWM), beyond the Mission period. It is widely acknowledged that successfully cleaning Urban India will require large scale participation from citizens. Hence, building citizens’ awareness, knowledge and capabilities on managing the waste generated by them also becomes crucial.
With over 1,00,000 ULB officials required to be trained, in addition to common citizens, the financial and man-power constraints prohibit a classroom-based capacity building model. Hence, it became necessary to leverage digital technology to drive this initiative.