Women must be centre-stage in water and sanitation

 

In 2018 the rallying call of the Swacch Bharat Mission (SBM) campaign of “Satyagraha se Swachhagrah” - rode on the back of the big change in sanitation habits in India .

In May 2014, India was shaken by the rapes of two adolescent girls in rural northwest India, when they were out in the evening to defecate in an open field. In a recent study in the Indian Journal of Gender Studies on Women’s Experiences of Defecating in the Open, one respondent said: Some men would hide and watch us defecating and then talk about it. This often put my husband to shame and even led to quarrels, with my husband scolding me for not remaining hidden.

Fortunately, sanitation continues to be central to the government’s agenda. With the Covid-19 pandemic, it is recognised that by addressing sanitation and water issues, we improve hygiene, health, gender, and livelihoods. The Swachh Bharat Mission 2.0 (SBM) aims, among other things, to find solutions for sustained behaviour change, addressing women and their personal hygiene needs.

There is a growing consensus now that whereas the statutory framework relating to sanitation is gender neutral in its approach, the policy framework does recognise gender-related issues. However, when it comes to implementation, it is evident that sanitation-related needs and vulnerabilities of women need to be better addressed. Examples such as women not being consulted in decisions taken on sanitation-related matters such as the building and use of toilets and failing to take into account the prevalent socio-cultural norms, which for generations have defined the status of women as one that needs to be protected from all forms of exposure, while, at the same time, forcing them to defecate in the open even if this is in groups, substantiate this contention.

Nor should communication only focus on women, as if men could do whatever they liked; 100% open defecation free, cannot be achieved without men also being engaged.

The famous promotional videos of SBM casting its celebrity ambassador, Vidya Balan portrayed a scene, where the protagonist asked a man on his wedding day whether he had a toilet at home, to which the answer was negative. This prompted the person to ask the bride to remove her veil explicitly giving a message that a man who lets his wife defecate in the open has no right to let his wife observe purdah. In other words, the man has to build a toilet to be able to enforce the purdah system. Later, the video was amended to “clean” the message — all communication needs to be re-checked through a gender lens.

Several research studies have indicated that girls drop out of schools due to inadequate sanitary facilities being provided especially during their menstruation periods. Facilities need to be provided — and their awkwardness needs to be addressed too.

Much work has been done to alter some of these norms and beliefs, with women clearly coming to the forefront to take charge of addressing their own needs, supported by various government schemes and non-governmental organisations.

In Odisha, women and transgender Self-Help Groups (SHGs) have been engaged in the operation and maintenance of treatment facilities in eight cities; in Jharkhand, trained women masons built over 15 lakh toilets in one year, and the state was declared open defecation free (rural) much ahead of the national cut-off date of October 2, 2019.

These examples are rapidly increasing throughout the country, with women being able to push through reforms that better their overall wellbeing either through the help of support groups or through community-led efforts. Water management, sanitary complexes that answer their needs, and a host of other requirements to help them in their daily lives are now being driven by them.

The livelihood creation opportunities are immense whether from building the infrastructure, maintaining and operating the facilities or the communication programmes in communities — and women can play a part in all of these .

The India Sanitation Coalition is committed to looking at these reforms through a gender lens to ensure unintended biases do not creep in. Policies on water and sanitation need to keep the needs of women centre-stage — indeed enable them to be agents of change.

Naina Lal Kidwai is chair, India Sanitation Coalition and FICCI Water Mission

Source: 31-12-20

Challenge of managing solid waste in our cities requires community engagement

Vellore, with a population of five lakh, has been a trailblazer in decentralised management of solid waste and sending no waste to landfills. It has earned the remarkable distinction of getting its residents to separate wet waste from dry waste.

We wrote in our last column, ‘Small town, cleaner future’ (IE, February 27) about how small towns in India are showing the way in keeping wet waste separate from dry waste. This is the most critical first step for sound solid waste management. We also looked to see if some bigger towns are getting their act together in managing their solid waste. Admittedly, it is more difficult to organise community action in large towns. But wards are a good place to start, and we are happy to report some encouraging news from Tamil Nadu.

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Vellore city in Tamil Nadu, with a population of five lakh, has been a trailblazer in decentralised management of solid waste and sending no waste to landfills. More recently, it has earned the remarkable distinction of getting all its residents to separate their wet waste from dry waste, which makes the task of solid waste management so much easier for the municipal corporation.Vellore generates 160 tonnes of solid waste per day, excluding waste from bulk generators. It all began with a PIL in the National Green Tribunal in 2015 seeking closure of the eight-acre dumpsite on a tank bund in Saduperi, a few kilometres away from Vellore. The site had been used for dumping mixed waste since 1991.

Vellore Municipal Corporation (VMC) responded to the challenge by building 42 sheds for micro composting centres (MCCs) across its 60 wards. Each MCC (with a capacity ranging from 1.5 to 5 tonnes) was provided enclosed sheds containing numerous open-brickwork tanks (5 ft deep, 5-6 ft wide and 7-10 ft long) for composting wet waste: The tanks are filled in rotation, over a starter bed of dry leaves, with one-foot layers of hand-sorted wet waste plus a layer of cow dung-slurry as a compost starter, and allowed to mature for 30-60 days.

Last month, one of us led a group of 10, driving from Bengaluru to Vellore to see for ourselves how the VMC was implementing its decentralised waste management system. At a particular MCC, we were pleased to see fully segregated wet waste being hand-picked to remove coconut shells and other hard-to-compost items, on the one hand, and clean dry waste carefully sorted into different bins for sale, on the other.

Municipal commissioner at that time, Janaki Raveendran, with support from all elected local representatives, proactively and completely stopped sending any waste to the dumpsite. They started doorstep collection of mixed waste in Vellore, using primary collection vehicles and municipal workers to transport the waste to the MCCs: These are run by self-help groups who are provided with covered space for sorting, and are paid Rs 250 per day. They can collectively keep the sale proceeds of both the compost and dry waste, and VMC pays for electricity and water. There is no secondary transport, no transfer stations for the garbage and no black spots in the city, not to speak of the significant savings made on transport cost.

The second major step of 100 per cent segregation came with the enthusiastic efforts of S Sivasubramanian who assumed charge as municipal commissioner of VMC on October 31, 2018. Having inherited a well-functioning system of decentralised waste management, the new commissioner was determined to achieve doorstep collection of waste, fully segregated at source, as he had done in his earlier posting in Tirunelveli. And, this has been achieved in Vellore in just four months. This should give food for thought to many of those who believe it can’t be done in India. It is being done — in the South, but there is no reason why the North cannot follow suit.

There was also an awareness campaign, which involved the municipal commissioner of Vellore and other high officials leveraging social media by posting photos of themselves in their home kitchens with separate bins for wet and dry waste. All municipal staff and waste workers down to the lowest level, and all government employees, were urged to keep their home wastes unmixed before asking others to do so. Religious leaders of different communities were also approached and urged to convey to their followers the importance of keeping wet and dry wastes unmixed and to avoid from January 2019 the use of one-time-use plastics which have been banned by the Tamil Nadu government. Groups like the Lions and Rotary were roped in to spread the good word. Schools were required to get pledges signed by all students and their parents. With the cooperation of teachers, they have reached out to 1,28,000 homes.

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Such campaigns to engage with the community are successful only when the doorstep collection teams cooperate and strictly refuse taking mixed waste. After accepting the segregated waste, they should visibly transport the wet and dry waste — separately — to gain the trust of those who have complied, by not mixing the wastes at source. The pending grievances of waste collectors with respect to promotions, filling vacancies, provident fund issues and minor repairs of primary collection vehicles, etc. were resolved to ensure their buy-in for the campaign. This shows leadership in making change happen.

Micro-planning of collection vehicle routes manned by municipal staff, and tracking their punctuality and performance, is also key to citizen cooperation. The benefit of such intense focus is that once initial success is achieved for the project, it is relatively easy to maintain the system. Prolonged deadlines for compliance, one area at a time, do not work.

At a morning muster, sanitary officers give each waste collector a notebook containing a message from the municipal commissioner, which they have to show to each household on their beat. They also need to collect a signed pledge to not mix their wastes and not use banned plastic: This is also to promote bonding with the households. After two warnings, mixed waste is temporarily accepted on payment of a fee of Rs 10. Thereafter, mixed waste pickup is strictly refused, with the full backing of the superior officers of the doorstep collectors. A follow-up visit is made the same evening to the defaulter household to find out where their uncollected waste went.

The Tamil Nadu government has provided an enabling environment through proactive engagement of the Department of Municipal Administration. The courts have also provided strong support for decentralised waste management. Under the leadership of G Prakash, commissioner of municipal administration in Tamil Nadu, 700 plus MCCs and several on-site composting centres have come up, all receiving well-segregated waste. As in Vellore, so in 19 other cities, no waste goes to a dumpsite. Statewide, wet waste is collected six days a week and dry waste only on Wednesdays. Municipalities have framed by-laws to comply with Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016. Thus, user charges starting from Rs 20 per month are added every six months to property tax, with collection rates of 80-100 per cent. Bulk generators managing their own waste are charged for collection of dry waste and for the waste they indirectly generate at local markets, eateries, etc. As a result of the plastic ban, the volume of total solid waste has come down from 160 to 131 tonnes a day.

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This model can work equally well in every ward of a metro city. The collective challenge of managing solid waste in our metros requires, above all, the engagement of the community.

This article first appeared in the print edition on April 3, 2019 under the title ‘How a city cleans up’. Ahluwalia is chairperson of Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER). Patel is member, Supreme Court committee on solid waste management.

Source: Indian Express, 3/04/2019

To clean India, invest in water conservation

The Northeastern part of India is doing well in the Swachh Bharat Mission. But an emerging water crisis in the Himalayas could reduce the gains made

Nagaland is pristine and gorgeous. But one needs a strong heart and a much stronger back to enjoy the Himalayan state. The roads are dirt tracks and tourist facilities are non-existent. The infrastructure-deficit Himalayan state, however, is not a laggard on one count: toilet infrastructure, especially in its rural areas. Recently, rural Nagaland was declared Open Defecation Free (ODF) by the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM). In fact, unlike in many other sectors, SBM’s record — not just in Nagaland — but across the Northeastern region (NE) has kept pace with the country’s expanding sanitation coverage. According to the ministry of drinking water and sanitation, five out of seven states are ODF, with Assam and Tripura being the exceptions.

The NE’s good ODF record, experts say, is due to several reasons. First, high literacy levels; second, strong community-based institutional structures (church groups, students’ organisations, youth groups, and village-level water and sanitation committees, which ensure that all members of a community adhere to decisions such as banning open defecation); third, a progressive mindset with a strong focus on an integrated approach covering aspects of water, sanitation and hygiene; and fourth, an absence of any caste-related ritual pollution and purity concerns, which often make people resist the idea of building toilets inside their homes (a problem in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar). The negative impact such pollution-purity issues could have on the pace and success of SBM has been well documented by economists Diane Coffey and Dean Spears in Where India Goes, Abandoned Toilets, Stunted Development and the Costs of Caste.

However, the commendable gains made by these Himalayan states (the Centre bears 90% of the cost of building a toilet in these states), despite their undulating topography, may take a hit in the future due to an emerging water crisis, being sparked by deforestation (which will impact rainfall, soil health and consequently water availability), overpopulation (which will put stress on existing natural resources), and climate change (which will also affect water availability, among other things).

The first signs are already here.

“Population has been increasing over the years. Natural water bodies, streams and springs — the region’s core source of water — are getting polluted. Villages already face acute water problem… drilling boreholes is not an option,” explained Assam-based Samuel Therieh, a sanitation expert for World Vision India. “Many Himalayan villages are located on hilltops and in many cases away from the water sources. It’s not always possible to build pipelines due to the topography. If nearby water sources dry up, then people will find it difficult to get water for sanitation purposes.”

The ministry of water resources estimates that each rural household in India needs 40 litres of water every day, out of which 15 to 20 litres are required for sanitation. But as of 2017, almost 19,000 villages in India were yet to have access to piped water supply. Even the ones that do get piped water, getting 40 litres a day remains a distant dream. On an average, a well supplied rural household receives 8-10 litres of water per day. As water is mostly utilised for cooking, drinking and washing, using it for sanitation becomes the last priority. The government has said that it is committed to covering 90% of Indian rural households with piped water supply by 2022.

“A lot of the funds for sanitation came at the expense of water. So while the need for water increased because of toilet usage, the investment in water to augment domestic water supplies decreased. With challenging geography, the situation gets more complex,” says Indira Khurana , water and sanitation expert, and author of Reflections on Managing Water, Earth’s Greatest Natural Resource.

The absence of water resources was also raised by a parliamentary panel in 2018. The panel, headed by Lok Sabha member, Dr P Venugopal, said that going through the factual and ground realities prevalent in the country, it is perplexed as to how ODF can be achieved without the availability of adequate water provisions. The panel recommended that the ministry of drinking water and sanitation prioritise the provision of water availability along with the construction of toilets under SBM and apprise it of actual figures of toilets with water facilities that have been constructed.

Economists Coffey and Spears, however, argue that if social forces against open defecation are strong enough ------ as it is in the NE ------ people without water connections will also be willing to fill buckets to flush their latrines. This momentum must not be lost. To ensure that people keep using toilets, it is not just critical to develop and construct toilets that use less water (such as TATA Trusts rural pans), but also augment water security so that people are not forced to exit the programme. Building pipelines is an expensive and time consuming proposition. It is, therefore, critical to invest in the renovation of traditional wells, rain water harvesting systems and reviving the natural springs that dot the mountain landscape. These efforts can ensure a steady source of water for sanitation in the Northeast, and consolidate the gains of SBM.

kumkum.dasgupta@htlive.com

Source: Hindustan Times, 5/02/2019

A 21st century revolution

India must adopt reinvented toilets and omni processor waste treatment plants to scale up sanitation

When Microsoft founder Bill Gates displayed a glass beaker with human faeces on stage at a sanitation conference in Beijing recently, he was praised by World Bank president Jim Yong Kim for “making poop cool”. Mr. Gates was in China to pursue the serious business of reinventing the toilet. Innovation, he reasoned, would expand sanitation quickly and save children in developing countries from the crippling consequences of stunting. In many places, children play amidst faeces in the open and contract disease, resulting in malnutrition and stunting.

Decentralising sanitation

Over the last seven years, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) has devoted $200 million to incubate new technologies that will dramatically scale up sanitation. It has announced a further investment of $200 million to achieve this, and trials of new toilets and processing technologies are going on in India, among other countries. According to UNICEF, 22.2% of children, or 151 million, under five years were stunted globally in 2017. The World Bank says annual healthcare costs from lack of sanitation in developing countries is a staggering $260 billion.

The challenge to decentralise sanitation, in Mr. Gates’s view, has parallels with the historic shift from mainframe computing, which only governments and large corporations could afford, to personal computers. Fast-expanding cities cannot have massive sewage treatment plants. What they need is stand-alone processors, which will help communities and individuals.

At the Beijing conference, which also hosted the Reinvented Toilet Expo, Mr. Gates observed that “in many places in India today, 30% or 40% of the kids end up malnourished.” That is because faeces containing pathogens lie exposed. Open defecation has a high health cost. It spreads disease, stunts children and prevents them from achieving normal physical and mental development. The answer lies in new technologies, some of which are at a high stage of maturity now. If India adopts them, it can rapidly expand sanitation at low cost.

To many observers, including Mr. Gates, India is further behind on sanitation than on other issues, which is reflected in the high levels of stunting. This situation persists despite high levels of economic development over the years. The BMGF wants to change that not just for Indians, who form a significant proportion of the 4.5 billion people worldwide looking for solutions, but those in Africa and other parts of Asia. The solution it offers is the reinvented toilet and omni processor waste treatment plants.

Technologists and researchers have been working on these from the time the BMGF issued a “challenge” to them in 2011 seeking innovative solutions. The technology teams now have working prototypes. It is now up to politicians and policymakers to make decisions to adopt them, especially because the Sustainable Development Goal of sanitation and clean water for all by 2030 is not far away.

Innovation involves a shift away from the gold standard of flush toilets connected to sewers. In the new order, there will be stand-alone facilities that are aesthetically designed, finely engineered and equipped with reliable chemical processes that produce nothing more than ash from solids, while reusing the liquid as non-potable water after treatment. The future, the BMGF hopes, will belong to these Multi-User Reinvented Toilets. The prototypes are undergoing trials in far-flung centres such as Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu and Durban in South Africa. The technologies that run inside them have been developed by research institutions such as California Institute of Technology (Caltech), University of South Florida, and Duke University. Some products are ready for prime time. Caltech’s partnership with toilet-maker Eram Scientific will help induct the technology and deploy it at scale. There may also be a mix-and-match approach, leveraging the best technologies from the individual prototypes.

What makes these reinvented toilets special is that they expel nothing. They turn liquid waste into clear water for flushing, and solids into pellets or ash that is fertilizer. Success will depend on making large community deployments, and developing cost-effective models for individuals. One reinvented toilet by Helbling of Switzerland has a classic European design and cost $500 to develop. While the reinvented toilet gets optimised, India should, in parallel, look at omni processors for faecal sludge treatment plants (FSTP). These “zero emission” processors will end dumping of faecal sludge taken from septic tanks into rivers, lakes, farms and open spaces. They can also prevent the death of workers in septic tanks. Some models also attach a gasifier that can use municipal solid waste, providing a solution to handle that urban waste stream as well.

Spending on technology

India’s record in treating urban sewage is poor at 30%, and a third of about 847 large sewage treatment plants are not functional, according to BMGF estimates. The priority should be to put all these plants to full use, and equip them to handle faecal sludge by adding omni processors to them. In Beijing, Mr. Gates observed that “political leaders like Prime Minister Modi have been willing to speak about sanitation.” The Swachh Bharat Mission has brought faecal sludge treatment within its ambit, and many Chief Ministers want FSTPs. Put together, their orders total 415 such plants this year. Disappointingly, only a minority of these will have omni processors. Indians have contributed a lot by way of taxes for sanitation, and the money should be spent on the new technology.

Even in an advanced State such as Tamil Nadu, which is working to upgrade its infrastructure, only 30% of urban sewage is treated, says Alkesh Wadhwani, Country Director, Poverty Alleviation, BMGF. On the other hand, in 3,500 small cities, very little gets treated. There are some promising signs. Odisha wants 115 faecal sludge treatment plants. Andhra Pradesh has taken the lead and funded 33 plants, and, importantly, tendered for omni processors for these. Tamil Nadu has announced that it will build 48 plants out of its own funds, estimating that 80% of the faecal sludge problem can be managed across the State at a cost of less than about Rs. 200 crore. Large and often idle sewage treatment plants can be put to dual use, by adding an FSTP, preferably with an omni processor. In the case of small towns, a cluster approach will help, and two or three of them can come together to share treatment plant capacity.

Philanthropy of the kind advanced by Mr. Gates aims to take up issues that may not otherwise get attention, and to lower the barriers for governments to act. Now that technology is ready with a “zero effluent” toilet, national policy should make it accessible to everyone.

ananthakrishnan.g@thehindu.co.in

Source: The Hindu, 20/11/2018

Efficient management of waste disposal sites can curb air pollution

The practical way to deal with such legacy dumpsites, which are a source of local air pollution and fire accidents, is to stabilise the slopes. We must start recovering the landfill gas and then either flaring or harvesting it to be used as a potential fuel.

In 2016, India revised the Solid Waste Management Rules, banning dumping of mixed waste in low-lying areas and open dumps. Yet, many such waste disposal sites are still operational in Delhi and Mumbai. Many of them have gone beyond their permissible operational period because there are no alternative sites. Such sites are now as high as 50-60 m above the ground level, and have also become unstable because of garbage disposal. In October last year, one side of a Ghazipur waste disposal site, managed by the East Delhi Municipal Corporation, collapsed, killing at least two people.

However, the stability of the slope is not the only concern in terms of waste disposal sites. Combustibles such as rags, plastics, paper and wood often catch fire. These surface fires emit particulate matter, including black carbon or soot, which is a short-term climate pollutant with global warming potential. While dousing such fires is relatively easy, subsurface fires are not. This occurs when biodegradable waste degrades anaerobically and produces landfill gases. The main component of landfill gas— methane — catches fire when it comes in contact with air. It is often challenging to quantify the actual spread of fire in the subsurface.

Such fires, whether surface or subsurface, contribute to local air pollution. Waste disposal sites thus also contribute to an increased level of local air pollution and often add to the haze during the winter season. This phenomenon, which occurs every winter in Delhi, was also evident in Mumbai a few years ago. The ambient air quality monitoring around the active waste disposal sites has indicated higher levels of particulate matter, carbon monoxide (CO) and methane than the prescribed standards. Apart from these pollutants, emission of traces of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) from waste disposal sites is also a concern as even its small concentrations are toxic to humans. As per the TERI study, the landfill fires contribute to 0.4% of air pollution in terms of PM2.5 in winter season in Delhi.

The present practice of using fire tenders for dousing waste dumpsite fires not only introduces water into the landfill which later percolates through as leachate, but also washes away good quality soil cover from the top of the slopes thereby exposing the waste.

The practical way to deal with such legacy dumpsites, which are a source of local air pollution and fire accidents, is to stabilise the slopes. We must start recovering the landfill gas and then either flaring or harvesting it to be used as a potential fuel. Once these dumps have been stabilised and most of the landfill gas recovered, the dumps can be opened, and their content mined into compostable, combustibles and inerts. The combustibles can be further processed into refuse-derived fuel (RDF) and used as a source of energy, either in industries or cement kilns. This can be done cell by cell on the disposal sites. The emptied cells should be lined and converted into sanitary landfills so that scientific disposal of residues of waste processing can be initiated, in compliance with the waste management rules of 2016.

Suneel Pandey is director, environment & waste management, TERI

Source: Hindustan Times, 14/11/2018

Think small: on Ganga rejuvenation

Decentralised sludge management systems are vital to achieve clean water goals

Bad sanitation is India’s worst-kept secret, but recent data from Uttar Pradesh show that in spite of working in mission mode to expand sanitation, 87% of faecal sludge expelled from toilets in urban areas is untreated. Viewed against the 2030 goal to achieve clean water and sanitation for all under the UN Sustainable Development Agenda, this depressing statistic shows how much work remains to be done. State support for improved housing and planned development has never been strong, and the National Urban Sanitation Policy of 2008 has not changed that significantly. At the national scale, a United Nations report of 2015 estimates that 65,000 tonnes of untreated faeces is introduced into the environment in India annually. The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan promised a major shift, but it has focussed more on the basic requirement of household and community toilets in rural and urban areas. The study in U.P. conducted by the Centre for Science and Environment has now exposed broken links, of faecal sludge and septage being collected from household tanks and simply discharged into drains, open land and wetlands. The problem of the waste not being contained, collected without manual labour, transported and treated safely is becoming graver. It is now time for a new approach. This has to be decentralised and different from the strategy being used to clean the Ganga, for which the NDA government announced an outlay of ₹20,000 crore in 2015. That strategy relies on large sewage treatment plants for riverside cities and towns.

Immediate investments in decentralised sludge management systems would bring twin benefits: of improving the environment and reducing the disease burden imposed by insanitary conditions. It is welcome that the CSE study is being followed up with a mapping exercise on the flow of faecal waste streams in individual cities. The results for Varanasi, Allahabad and Aligarh in particular should be revealing, since the collection efficiency for sludge in these cities ranges from just 10% to 30%. One immediate intervention needed is the creation of an inter-departmental task force to identify land to build small treatment systems for sludge, and to provide easily accessible solutions to houses that are currently discharging waste into open drains. The business of emptying faecal material using tanker trucks needs to be professionalised and de-stigmatised. It is untenable that manual scavengers continue to be employed in violation of the law to clean septic tanks in some places, and caste factors play out in the recruitment of workers even in the mechanised operations. All aspects of the business of sanitation need reform if India is to meet Goal Number 6 of the Sustainable Development Goals with egalitarian policies. A large State such as Uttar Pradesh provides the opportunity to demonstrate commitment to policy. Success here can transform lives.

Source: The Hindu, 26/10/2018

With new sanitation policies, toilets are fast moving from being a privilege to being a right

While the progress made in the past three years is indeed heartening, there is much work to be done, especially in urban India.

The six-legged fly, a vector of the faecal-oral route transmission, was the cause of many socio-economic problems in India. Over one lakh children annually succumb to diseases spread by the fly and its vector brethren, primarily due to diarrhoea. Open defecation is the prime cause. For more years than we can count, more than half the people of India, a country of diverse people, cultures and faiths, have faced an unusually unifying question every morning: Where do I squat to answer nature’s call today? In our country of paradoxes, the contrast between being a rising global superpower and having one of the finest demographic dividend on the one hand, and the challenge of one-fourth of our population not having access to sanitation in the form of toilets or sewage treatment systems on the other hand is sadly striking.

The launch of Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) from the ramparts of the Red Fort on August 15, 2014, was a clarion call by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who no doubt has the conviction and the commitment to make India clean and healthy. The programme had excellent early success, with India moving from 37% sanitation coverage in 2014 to 67% safe sanitation by 2016.

A programme of this scale cannot become a success with merely a push from the top, critical though this is. Currently, the country is home to about 4.5 lakh Swachhagrahis, or foot soldiers, spreading the message of sanitation. Over the years, initiatives such as Swachh Sankalp se Swachh Siddhi, Freedom from Open Defecation Week, Satyagraha se Swachhagraha, Swachh Bharat Summer Internship and Swachhata Hi Seva (SHS) are some of the SBM programs that have propelled the programme into a citizen’s movement. This year, SHS 2018, organised by the ministry of drinking water and sanitation, is looking to reinforce the message of a jan-andolan (citizen’s movement). In the SHS 2017 campaign, an estimated 10 crore Indians had participated to make India clean in just a fortnight.

This year, the SHS campaign commenced on September 15 and will run up to October 2 to coincide with the beginning of Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary celebrations. The campaign will engage government bodies, sportspersons, faith leaders, media persons, the corporate sector and their employees, political leaders, school students, youth, pensioners and Swachhagrahis contributing to the cause of Swachhata. India Sanitation Coalition (ISC) is taking the Swaachta Doot programme, originally conceived and implemented by Hindustan Unilever, to other companies across the country. This is a worker-volunteer programme in which factory employees are the messengers of change.

While the progress made in the past three years is indeed heartening, there is much work to be done, especially in urban India. The large scale migration of our rural population into urban areas has resulted in the mushrooming of slums, with an estimated 15-20% of our population residing in slums where the lack of space makes the provision of individual or even community toilets difficult. In cooperation with the Urban Local Bodies, some corporations have made efforts to alleviate this issue. A good example of this is the Suvidha facility put up by Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) in Ghatkopar (Maharashtra) as also the Sulabh International’s pay and use model. Swachh Bharat Mission has worked to build consensus toward a collaborative plan to tackle the sanitation challenge. Unprecedented efforts like Swachh Iconic Places, Swachhata Action Plan, Swachhata Pakhwada, engagement of companies, public sector undertakings, development partners, non-profit organisations and media have helped unite many for a common goal.

To harness the collaborative power of NGOs, development partners, corporations, donors and the government, a few of us started the India Sanitation Coalition in 2015. We have encouraged, hand-held corporations to embrace sanitation, and spend Corporate Social Responsibility funds in support of the country’s sanitation agenda . With a multi-stakeholder approach, a specific thrust has been made to promote the entire value chain of sanitation, based on our BUMT (build, use, maintain and treat) model that addresses not just the building and usage of toilets, but also the treatment of waste generated. Corporations are playing a key role in a wide spectrum of sanitation themes, right from the creation of innovative infrastructure (Havells) to skills development (Kohler, Reckitt Benckiser), behaviour change advocacy (IL&FS, HUL) as well as community engagement. Reckitt Benckiser’s behaviour-change communication specifically through the ‘Dettol — Banega Swachh India’ campaign needs special mention.

Many companies have supported toilets in schools. Some of these best practices are covered in greater detail in my book, Survive or Sink, which presents a holistic approach to the many challenges and opportunities in sustainable development in India and provides recommendations on aspects that need to be considered for the next level of sanitation initiatives or Swachhata 2.0.

With everyone making sanitation their responsibility, the mission is expected to extend to a sustainable open defecation free status for the country. While the progress on the ODF front is resounding, Swachhata 2.0 will need to address the complex issue of urban sanitation. With nearly 75% of the faecal waste (which carries pathogens and disease-carrying bacteria) remains untreated, and finds their way into drains, lakes and rivers, they pose a serious risk to health and overall productivity of the country.

In its newer avatar, the sanitation journey for our country will need to address sustainability with a clear mandate to all sanitation stakeholders. We need to go beyond the building of toilets, and invest in upstream areas of the BUMT chain, especially in faecal waste treatment. If we do not tackle treatment of faecal sludge, we would have embarked on one of the most expensive exercises in history to remove it from our fields by funnelling it into toilets and then dumping it right back into our fields.

With new sanitation policies under the Swachh Bharat Mission, its focus on ODF sustainability, inter-sectoral collaboration and quality without compromising on scale and speed, toilets are fast moving from being a privilege to being a right. And the image of the six-legged fly is now overshadowed by the image of the Late Kunwar Bai (who passed away earlier this year at the age of 106 years), who was felicitated by Prime Minister Modi for building toilets in Rajnandgaon by selling off her goats, and is the real Swachh Bharat Abhiyan mascot.

So, let us celebrate much that has been achieved even as we continue on our journey to achieve ODF status for the country.

Naina Lal Kidwai is Chair, India Sanitation Coalition

Source: Hindustan Times, 3/10/18