Getaway focus on becoming best you can be
‘Clean India’ project to deliver 111m toilets in 5 years
WE SPEND too much time trying to fix the world, rather than focusing on repairing ourselves, the director of Vishwa Shakti believes, hoping to help others better themselves to create a sound community.
Kamal Maharaj, who founded the cultural nonprofit organisation, is hosting the annual Vishwa Shakti rejuvenation camp in Drakensberg later this year.
The December getaway is the 50th of its kind for the organisation, with the theme “A better me for a more awesome we”.
“It’s about looking after yourself and developing yourself. Once you start doing this, only then will you become a more powerful being for others, and you will be more useful to the community around you,” he said.
The camp, based at a Drakensberg resort, will include hiking, mountain adventures and yoga, among other activities created to help one become more focused and self-aware.
“You must rejuvenate your INDIA is on the greatest toiletbuilding spree in human history, and it’s a windfall for companies.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s $20 billion “Clean India” mission aims to construct 111million latrines in five years.
Besides promising to improve the health, safety and dignity of hundreds of millions of Indians, the national hygiene drive has spurred an 81% jump in sales of concrete building materials and a 48% increase in bathroom and sanitaryware sales, according to Euromonitor International. That’s benefiting firms from Tata Group, the nation’s largest conglomerate, to cleaning-products maker Reckitt Benckiser Group.
Almost 80 million household toilets are estimated to have been built since Modi’s 2014 vow to ensure universal sanitation coverage by October 2019, marking 150 years since independence leader Mahatma Gandhi’s birth.
The scale-up of latrines and a nationwide campaign to encourage their use is driving a market for toilet-related products and services that’s predicted to double to $62bn by 2021.
“It’s the biggest, most successful behaviour-change campaign in the world,” said Val Curtis, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s Environmental Health Group, who has worked on the program in India. “Every time I go there, I feel like I can’t sit down for weeks after, because I’m excited about what they’re doing. It’s incredible.”
Bollywood celebrity Akshay Kumar, star of the sanitationpromoting movie Toilet: Ek
Prem Katha (or “Toilet: A Love mind and body. Learn how to relax and appreciate the world around you. We have been doing this for many years and are well guided in how to organise activities,” Maharaj added.
There is no age limit on who can come through, and families are welcome to attend. But children travelling solo must be 13 and older.
Said Maharaj: “We have had many pupils who, when they return home from the camp, become different people. Their parents say they are less grumpy, and more jovial and focused.”
The 50th milestone is also a chance for a reunion, and Maharaj has invited previous campers to come along the journey to reminisce on travels of the past. The camp is from December 17-23.
Tickets include transport, accommodation for six nights, meals and activities. Chalet bookings cost R2 950 per person, and hostel bookings cost R1 950 per person.
For more information and reservations, contact Kamal Maharaj on kamalh@telkomsa.net or 082 929 9609. Story”), was appointed brand ambassador this month for Harpic, the bowl-cleaner made by Reckitt Benckiser. The Slough, England-based company, which also sells the disinfectant Dettol, dominates the toilet-care market in India, with sales climbing
11% to $105.7 million last year, Euromonitor data show.
“We are one of the most trusted brands in India, and we’ve always managed to outperform the market with Dettol,” Rakesh Kapoor, Reckitt Benckiser’s India-born chief executive officer, said on a conference call in April.
The company has been able to increase awareness of its cleaning products by working with open defecation-free communities and households to promote sanitation and hygiene.
That’s a common theme across suppliers of home-care products, according to Sowmya Adiraju, a research analyst at Euromonitor in Bengaluru. For example, Hindustan Unilever Ltd entered the low-cost toilet cleaner market with a new powdered product, and has been trying to make toilets accessible and affordable via its Toilet Academy.
Companies are investing heavily on spreading awareness about better hygiene products, aiding the penetration of home care products in India, which is still low by global standards, Adiraju said in an email.
The “Clean India” mission has had a “largely positive” impact on suppliers of sanitaryware and tiles, sales of which are predicted to expand about 11% annually through 2022, according to Adiraju. The sanitation campaign was anticipated initially to provide a bigger sales boost, but some companies have partnered with governments more as a social initiative than a business opportunity, she said.
Before Modi began the Clean India programme, known locally as the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan mission, the country accounted for more than half of the world’s 1.1 billion people who routinely relieve themselves in fields, beaches and other open spaces.
So-called open defecation contaminates food and drinking water, and spreads diarrheal diseases that cause chronic malnutrition and childhood stunting – a burden the World Bank estimated costs India 6.4% of its gross domestic product.
“Sanitation is a basic need denied to a majority of the
Indian population,” said Rajeev Kher, chief executive officer of Saraplast, a closely-held manufacturer, supplier and cleaner of restrooms, including portable toilets for rent. Kher has also converted aged buses into mobile toilets to provide a “clean and safe toilet experience” for women in a collaboration with municipal authorities in the western city of Pune.
For individual households, Japan’s LIXIL Group has supplied tens of thousands of twin pit toilet systems that cost $10 or less apiece to facilitate safe management of excreta in the absence of a sewage connection.
Increased government spending on toilets and sanitation bodes well for Indian Hume Pipe, according to Pallav Agarwal, an analyst with Antique Stock Broking in Mumbai, who rates the pipe company a buy. It secured a dozen major work orders for water supply and sewerage projects across six states in the 2018 fiscal year, totalling 20.9bn rupees ($300m), Agarwal reported.
Shares of Cera Sanitaryware and Somany Ceramics have more than doubled since August 2014, when Modi, in his Independence Day speech, emphasised hygiene and the need to build toilets in rural areas. Kajaria Ceramics and HSIL have each jumped at least 40% in the period.
Mumbai-based Tata Group’s steel division makes Nest-in, a modular toilet that comes with an option for a bio-digester. The company has been focusing on products for end-users, including modular housing and toilets, and in March opened public toilet blocks at rest stops along a national highway.
“Private sector enterprises have to pitch in to make the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan successful,” said Prabhat Pani, head of partnerships and technology at Tata Trusts, which owns two-thirds of Tata Sons, the apex company of Tata Group. – Bloomberg