Satya Bharti Abhiyan benefits over 50,000 individuals across 405 villages

Ludhiana, February 2, 2016: Bharti Foundation’s ‘Satya Bharti Abhiyan’, an initiative to improve sanitation facilities in rural areas, today announced that the program now benefits over 50,000 individuals across 405 villages of Ludhiana District (Punjab). In less than eighteen months of its launch, over 10,000 toilets have been constructed and handed over free of cost to individual households in these villages, thus allowing access to proper sanitation facilities. In particular, women and children have benefited from the program as they no longer forced to relieve themselves in the open. Bharti Foundation had committed an investment of upto INR 100 Crores to improve sanitation conditions by constructing a toilet in every household in over 900 villages across District Ludhiana. The program on the targeted scale will benefit over 1,00,000 individuals.

In addition to rural household sanitation, under the ‘Satya Bharti Abhiyan’ separate toilets for girls have also been constructed by Bharti Foundation in 14 Government schools in rural Ludhiana.

Apart from providing sanitation facilities, the Foundation is also focused on bringing about a behavioral change through various ongoing sanitation campaigns spread over six states in India. Through this awareness campaign over 3500 children of Satya Bharti Schools have inspired their parents to build toilets at home and have worked as agents of change to bring awareness amongst the communities they live in.

On this significant achievement of the Satya Bharti Abhiyan initiative, Rakesh Bharti Mittal, Co-Chairman, Bharti Foundation, said, “We are proud to announce the rapid impact and achievement of the sanitation initiative in rural Ludhiana. This significant milestone would not have been possible with the active support of the State Government, local administration, the Panchayats and village communities. This accomplishment has further strengthened our commitment towards improving quality of life and we are confident that there will be no rural household in Ludhiana without a toilet by the end of this year.”

Bharti Foundation launched the Satya Bharti Abhiyan in August 2014, to improve sanitation facilities in rural Ludhiana. The Foundation aims to cover every village across Ludhiana District under the initiative by constructing toilets free of cost in all households lacking such facilities. At the end of this program, Ludhiana District will be left with no household without a toilet. The initiative is being supported by Bharti Airtel Limited and Bharti Infratel Limited.