Maintain the momentum of Swachh Bharat
Our sanitation journey will need to address sustainability and provide a clear mandate to all stakeholders
The six-legged fly, a vector of the faecal-oral route transmission, was the cause of many socio-economic problems in India. More than 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. In our country of paradoxes, the contrast between being a rising global superpower and having one of the finest demographic dividends 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 striking.
The launch of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) 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 programmes that have propelled the programme into a citizens movement. This year, SHS 2018, organised by the ministry of drinking water and sanitation, is looking to reinforce the message of a citizens movement.
This year, the SHS campaign ran from September 15 to October 2 to coincide with the beginning of Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary celebrations. The campaign engaged government bodies, sportspersons, the corporate sector, political leaders, students, pensioners and swachhagrahis contributing to the cause of Swachhata. The India Sanitation Coalition (ISC) is taking the Swaachta Doot programme, originally conceived and implemented by Hindustan Unilever (HUL), to other companies across the country.
The large scale migration of our rural population into urban areas has resulted in the mushrooming of slums. 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 HUL in Maharashtra as also the Sulabh International’s pay and use model.
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.
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 new sanitation policies under the Swachh Bharat Mission, its focus on open defecation free sustainability, inter-sectoral collaboration and quality without compromising on scale and speed, toilets are fast moving from being a privilege to being a right.
So, let us celebrate much that has been achieved even as we continue on our journey.