Swachhata Hi Seva (SHS)

What is Swachhata Hi Seva?

Swachhata Hi Seva (SHS) is the annual national cleanliness campaign held in the fortnight before Gandhi Jayanti, run jointly by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) and the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation (DDWS) under the Ministry of Jal Shakti. Swachhata Hi Seva is the mass participation arm of the Swachh Bharat Mission. The mission builds infrastructure through the year, and this campaign mobilises people around it for two weeks.

Swachhata Hi Seva 2025 ran from 17 September to 2 October 2025 on the theme "Swachhotsav", chosen to line up with the Indian festive season and push clean, low-waste celebrations. The 2024 edition ran over the same dates on the theme "Swabhav Swachhata, Sanskaar Swachhata".

Key objectives

• Mobilise citizens, institutions and local bodies for visible cleanliness work on the ground in a fixed, well-publicised fortnight.
• Clean up specific neglected sites rather than doing generic sweeping.
• Recognise and protect sanitation workers, who do this work all year.
• Push behaviour change; segregation, low-plastic festivals, no littering.

Main features of Swachhotsav (2025)

• Cleanliness Target Units (CTUs); transformation of specific dark, dirty and neglected spots, documented before and after.
• Clean public spaces: swachhata activity across markets, bus stands, stations, water bodies, religious sites and tourist places.
• SafaiMitra Suraksha Shivir; single-window camps giving sanitation workers health check-ups, welfare scheme linkage and safety equipment.
• Clean green festivities, eco-friendly, zero-waste celebration of the festival season.
• Advocacy for swachhata, outreach, pledges and school and college programmes.

A nationwide voluntary shramdaan, "Ek Din, Ek Ghanta, Ek Saath": one day, one hour, together: is the campaign's signature event, asking people to give a single hour on a common day.

Who is eligible for Swachhata Hi Seva?

Swachhata Hi Seva is open to everyone. There is no income test, no age bar and no document check.

You can take part if you are:

• Any resident of India, in a city, town or village.
• A school, college or university, through NSS, NCC or eco-club units.
• A resident welfare association, self-help group, NGO or CSO.
• A company, office or public sector undertaking running a staff drive.
• A Gram Panchayat, urban local body or government department, which are the primary implementers.

What you cannot apply for:

• You cannot apply for a cash benefit. Swachhata Hi Seva has no beneficiary list, no financial assistance and no bank transfer to individuals. Anyone offering to "register you for the Swachhata Hi Seva payment" is running a fraud.
• You cannot claim a job. SafaiMitra Suraksha Shivirs link existing sanitation workers to welfare schemes and health services; they are not recruitment camps.
• Contractors and vendors are not eligible to treat participation as a procurement route — cleanliness works are tendered by the local body in the normal way, outside this campaign.

What do you need to take part in Swachhata Hi Seva?

How to apply to join Swachhata Hi Seva

1. Open the campaign portal at swachhatahiseva.gov.in during the campaign window, which runs from 17 September to 2 October.
2. Register free as a citizen or as an organisation, using your mobile number or email. No fee is charged at any stage.
3. Find an activity near you on the map or activity list, or create your own, a shramdaan at a garbage point, a water body clean-up, a school awareness drive or a SafaiMitra camp.
4. Enter the activity details: location, date, time and expected number of participants, and publish it so others can join.
5. Take part on the day, ideally in the common "Ek Din, Ek Ghanta, Ek Saath" shramdaan hour.
6. Upload photographs and the participant count after the drive. Before-and- after images are what make a Cleanliness Target Unit transformation countable in the campaign dashboard.

Local bodies also run the campaign through their own channels, your ward office, Gram Panchayat or district Swachh Bharat Mission cell will have a calendar of drives you can simply turn up for.

How Swachhata Hi Seva connects to Swachh Bharat Mission

Swachhata Hi Seva is not a separate scheme with its own budget line for citizens. It is the annual campaign layer over two missions that do carry budgets: Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen) in rural areas, run by DDWS, and Swachh Bharat Mission - Urban 2.0, run by MoHUA. Both have detailed guides on this site, including the financial assistance available for household toilets and waste management infrastructure.

If your interest is money, a toilet incentive, a community sanitary complex or a waste-processing asset for your Panchayat. The route is the parent mission, not this campaign.

Help and grievance redressal

• Urban complaints, the Swachhata app and your urban local body's ward office handle garbage, drain and public toilet complaints all year.
• Rural complaints, the Gram Panchayat and the district Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen) cell.
• Campaign registration issues. The helpdesk section of swachhatahiseva.gov.in.

Participation is free. No government department charges a fee to register an activity or issue a participation certificate under Swachhata Hi Seva.