A Report On Safe Drinking Water & Sanitation

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A Report On Safe Drinking Water & Sanitation

Why India has more cell phones than toilets

Talking about revolution is easy. But try discussing sanitation in the same animated way, and watch jaws drop.

Polite society will sniffily walk away. Submerging or emerging, India has traditionally treated sanitation like a taboo subject, much like sex. Even today, we speak about it mostly in whispers or in lingo that is so jargon-laden that it obfuscates more than it reveals. Net result: report after report confirms that India is a world leader in ‘open defecation.’ We still don’t say clearly or loud enough that we are in deep shit.

Which was why I was delighted when minister for rural development and drinking water and sanitation Jairam Ramesh tossed a teaser, ‘Why do women want mobile phones more than toilets,’ before an august gathering during the launch of the UN’s 2011-12 Asia Pacific Regional report on Millennium Development Goals.

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Ramesh has been hauled over the coals for that remark. Fuming activists have accused him of being insensitive and for blaming women for poor sanitation in India. But the good thing is that the brouhaha has brought the toilet-cell phone debate back in the spotlight and we are discussing sanitation in the run-up to the budget. I suspect that was exactly what the media-savvy minister intended.

More Indians have access to a mobile phone than to a toilet. Everyone knows that. The issue became a major talking point in 2010 when a report by the Ontario-based UN University’s Institute for Water, Environment and Health pointed out that while India had roughly 366 million people with access to improved sanitation in 2008, a far greater number, 545 million, had cell phones.

Today, nearly 74% of India’s population, over 880 million, own mobile phones. The latest figure for toilets is not available but all reports including those from the UN and other agencies indicate that India lags woefully behind in sanitation.

Why do so many people feel the urgent need for a mobile phone but not a toilet? Why do so many of those who have toilets not use them? Why don’t they wash their hands with soap before a meal and after defecation though the authorities have been asking everyone to do so, and are pointing out the link between water, sanitation, hygiene and health?

The Total Sanitation Campaign has been a bit like a token sanitation campaign, inRamesh’s words, because of the ‘pittance’ it received in government funds.

This leads to several problems. The government doles out Rs3,000 to poor people to build a toilet. But a proper one costs at least Rs8,000, as Ramesh himself noted. There is little support from banks to lend the rest.

But it is not just the money. The crucial reason is the perception of ‘need’. Today, every Indian feels he or she ‘needs’ a mobile phone, something that cannot be said for toilets.

In the early days of the TSC, officials focused on increasing the number of homes with toilets. But they found this did not lead to a proportional increase in toilet use.

There are pockets of progress in the country. For example, Sikkim does not have ‘open defecation.’ But there are millions who are still not aware of how strong the link between toilet use, health, and development actually is. As the UN report points out, ‘countries that offer better access to safe sanitation are likely to have lower levels of maternal mortality… and sanitation is also seen to be associated with a lower proportion of underweight children.’

So like the mobile phone, having and using a toilet at home is also a tool for progress. Why is it not seen as such? The major problem, of course, is the tradition by which toilets are seen as unclean, which should not be inside the house. Associated with that is the social acceptability of open defecation. Rising literacy and exposure have significantly helped change such attitudes. But vast numbers of people in this country remain illiterate and the challenge of ‘selling’ sanitation to them is harder.

Studies show that there is a link between high income and ownership of toilets. But significantly, ownership does not always mean usage or maintenance. The key factor is effective communication, taking the gender and caste dimensions into account. Just because there is a toilet at home does not mean everyone at home gets to use it. Maintenance of community toilets hinges on who is tasked to clean it.

Far too often, official communication campaigns do not make these points strongly enough. Nor do they draw the link between open defecation, diarrhoea and medical bills as clearly as they can. That may be the only way to make people think they need a toilet as desperately as they need a mobile phone.
The author is a New Delhi-based writer

Source:- http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column_why-india-has-more-cell-phones-than-toilets_1655351

Half of India still defecates in the open

 

Half of the country's population still defecates in the open even after 60 years of independence, the Planning Commission has admitted. 

Faced with the harsh reality of open defecation by a vast majority, affecting the dignity of women and girls the most, the plan panel is revamping its strategy and is set to raise spending on government programme on sanitation and drinking water. 

"Around 60 crore people defecate in the open," plan panel member Mihir Shah said, admitting to the need for a change in government's approach. The panel is of the view that toilets should be constructed for hamlets too, apart from aiming to build toilets for households. The thinking is also to build bathrooms along with toilets. 

Shah said government's existing Nirmal Gram Puraskar to award villages that promote hygiene and sanitation undermine the demand-driven sanitation programme. He hinted at a dramatically higher plan allocation for sanitation. 

The government can afford to pump more funds into sanitation schemes as the rural development ministry has found that around Rs 10,000 crore allocated for demand-driven national job guarantee scheme (NREGA) was lying unutilized. 

Under its flagship Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) launched in 1991, the government had set a target of universal household sanitation coverage by 2012 which is unlikely to be achieved. While the scheme is being implemented in 606 districts of 30 states and UTs, a recent review report said 22 states will not be able to meet the target. 

In fact, only five states - Tripura, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala and Mizoram - will be able to meet the 2012 target, according to a report 'A Decade of the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC)' of World Bank's Water and Sanitation Programme and the rural development ministry. 

The report found an increase in coverage from 21% in 2001 to over 65%. In the 1990s, only one in five rural households had access to a toilet. It also ranked the performance of states on a scale of 100. Only three states - Kerala, West Bengal and Maharashtra - have shown a score of above 75. 

Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Sikkim, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Tamil Nadu were among the states whose performance was above average (50-74). Rest of the states were ranked below average (below 25).

Source:- http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/half-of-india-still-defecates-in-the-open/articleshow/11818364.cms