Reckitt & Banega Swasth: A decade of progress

For over 10 years through our groundbreaking Dettol Banega Swasth India, we have been dedicated to empowering families, friends and communities across India to live cleaner, healthier lives.

Our impact

10 Oct 20243 minute read

Banega Swasth: One world-hygiene

For over a decade, our flagship campaign has addressed key public health issues and inspired collective action for a healthier future in India. Through focusing our engagement on children and young people, we’ve successfully shared our core message, that good hygiene is the foundation of good health, with more than 13 million people of different ages, genders and beliefs, enabling them to take control of their health and hygiene.

Banega Swasth

This successful partnership between Dettol, one of India’s most trusted brands, and NDTV, one of the leading national broadcasters, continues to evolve to meet the changing needs of the population we serve. Here’s a quick look at a few of the successes we’re driving together:

Our Dettol School Hygiene Curriculum: Our programme is reducing school absenteeism, through increasing children’s knowledge of the importance of handwashing, keeping them healthy and in the classroom. Our goal is to achieve a 75% improvement in sanitation practices. We know that when we share this message with children, they take that knowledge and behavioural change home to their families and communities.
Preventing diarrhoeal disease: According to the World Health Organization (WHO), diarrhoeal disease is the second leading cause of death among children under five years old, following pneumonia. It is responsible for the deaths of over 444,000 children globally each year. Through the campaign, 82% of children now say they have greater knowledge of preventing diarrhoea.
Our Durex Birds and Bees Talk Programme: This initiative has engaged around 10 million school adolescents, to empower informed decisions about relationships and sexuality. This initiative has demonstrated a 44% increase in knowledge about the relationship between sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and condom use.

“At Reckitt, we are immensely proud of the fact that Banega Swasth India is one of the longest-running health campaigns, going strong for over a decade. Our recent transition, to focus on a "Healthier India," meant our campaign embraced a broader, more holistic vision: ‘One Health, One Planet, One Future,’ focused on One World Hygiene. It was the right thing to do, and we’ll continue to evolve as the needs of the people we serve change.”

Kris Licht

CEO of Reckitt

“In the last decade, Banega Swasth has become a mass movement. New ideas have been given a platform, new experiments have been encouraged, and this is changing people’s behaviour. The program is helping the government to achieve our ‘Zero Diarrhea’ target.“

Smt. Droupadi Murmu

President of India

Harnessing AI to improve understanding of good hygiene

Leveraging our AI capabilities, we launched the Dettol Banega Swasth India interactive AI-based bot. Available in seven languages, this innovative tool is tackling hygiene-related issues by providing hygiene education and personalised learning experiences. Moving forward, the AI-bot will expand to include more nationally important languages, ensuring we reach as many communities as possible.

At the same time, we’re working on helping India transition science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education towards gamification. We’ve launched Dettol Hygiene Parks – India’s first hygiene-themed play park – designed to serve local communities by educating them on best hygiene practices in order to advance water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) goals.

Looking toward the next decade

Through dedicated efforts and strategic partnerships, Reckitt has empowered millions of people across India to lead cleaner, healthier lives. As we look to the future, we remain committed to our purpose: the pursuit of a cleaner, healthier world.

Find out more about our social programmes and commitments here.