Clean and private - The Clean India campaign should be taken seriously

COMMENTARAO, S.L. Rao, TT: India has inherited some strange practices. For example, a menstruating woman is still considered by many to be unclean and forbidden to enter temples, kitchens and pujarooms. This is so particularly in south India. Earlier, she was banished during her period to the backyard of the house which was also the place for open or closed defecation. Homes are kept spotlessly clean but all garbage is thrown out by many into the open. Private hygiene goes along with public squalor.

Open defecation has been the practice in both urban and rural areas. It has declined in most urban areas, especially in metropolitan towns, but not vanished. Most rural households do not have private toilets. But household surveys show that Indian households own more mobile phones in total than they have closed toilets.

To state the obvious, open defecation has many consequences. It destroys privacy. It restricts women to hold back till there is darkness and - for security - the company of other women. Open defecation spreads disease, especially diarrhoea, as excrement leaches into groundwater. Closed door defecation, good sewerage and drainage systems, regular garbage disposal and safe drinking water are essential as indicators of a cleaner environment and a more civic and developed society. India is among the most backward in these respects.

The emphasis of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, on a clean India - " swachh Bharat" - as a national campaign must not be politicized; it should be welcomed. Political criticism of the programme and its implementation is not only misplaced. It is wrong. Girl students in a Bangalore college made this clear recently to an important politician. The programme must be supported by all.

The 69th National Sample survey (2012) shows that over the last few decades, there has been progress. The data quoted here relates to the period, July 2012 to December 2012. The survey covered the whole of the Indian Union. The central sample was of 4,475 villages in rural areas and 3,522 urban blocks spread over all states and Union territories. The total number of households surveyed was 95,548, (53,393 in rural areas and 42,155 in urban areas).

About 88.5 per cent households in rural India had an improved source of drinking water while the corresponding figure was 95.3 percent in urban India.

Among rural households, 85.8 per cent had sufficient drinking water and for urban India the corresponding figure was 89.6 per cent. The percentage of households which got drinking water within their premises was 46.1 per cent in rural India and 76.8 per cent in urban India.

About 62.3 per cent of rural households and 16.7 per cent of urban households did not have any bathroom facility while 59.4 per cent and 8.8 per cent households in rural India and urban India respectively had no latrine facilities.

Among the households having latrine facilities, 31.9 per cent and 63.9 per cent households in rural India and urban India respectively had access to its exclusive use. About 38.8 per cent and 89.6 per cent households in rural and urban India respectively, had access to an 'improved' type of latrine and 80 per cent of rural households and 97.9 per cent of urban households had electricity for domestic use. Only 26.3 per cent and 47.1 per cent households in rural India and urban India respectively had dwelling units with 'good ventilation' while 31.7 per cent of rural households and 82.5 per cent of urban households had 'improved drainage' facilities in the environment of their dwelling units. In rural India 32 per cent households had some garbage disposal arrangement, whereas in urban areas the corresponding figure was 75.8 per cent.

This brief statistical description shows that many millions of Indians live in poor and unhygienic conditions. The duty of a good government is to improve their living conditions. Apart from funds and proper implementation, what are the requirements to correct the situation?

There must be an overarching determination at all levels that the situation must be speedily corrected. The 'beneficiaries' must accept the need for change. There must be a coordinated plan and implementing agencies should be monitored for completion on time and for quality.

There is a perception that many Indians prefer open defecation to privacy. How else do we explain the preference for television set ownership or for cell phones over having private latrines? Whatever the preferences might be, it is essential that a programme of education be launched to teach everyone of the importance to them and their families of avoiding open defecation. Providing financial support to households and imposing penalties on those who do not comply might help.

Women are perhaps easier persuaded of the need since they suffer debilitating gynaecological illnesses because of having to wait for hours to relieve themselves.

There is already a programme to urgently ensure that all schools have toilets. This is essential for the health of children, especially girls. It is also an incentive for parents to send girl children to school since they will have privacy in these personal tasks.

Building toilets in schools and homes is not enough. They have to be kept clean. There must also be adequate water available for users to wash after using the toilet. In homes, the Gandhian principle that cleaning their toilets is everyone's task, has to be inculcated. This also calls for a great deal of unlearning of old prejudices.

Ensuring water at all times in toilets at home, in schools and community toilets, is a great challenge. This is especially so in hot summers and in dry lands. Rainwater harvesting might help by collecting water. It may not be enough. Other methods must be found to have some water always available.

A major challenge is toilet design. It must suit the topography and climate of the area. Excrement can be collected in septic tanks and converted to fertilizer. This is a significant additional cost.

Alternatively there must be drainage that will take it away to places where it is treated for conversion to productive use, or flushed into the sea. A drainage system is part of a community or town arrangement and requires considerable investment. Another possibility is to design toilets that have microbes that break up the materials. These are capital cost intensive and also have a running cost. Both have to be provided for.

A Swachh Bharat programme cannot stop at sanitation. It must include drainage and garbage collection, removal, treatment and disposal. These are municipal issues. In India, in almost every part, these are subject to poor management, lack of planning and coordination, and huge corruption. They are also state and municipal subjects under the law. To get a swachh Bharat all these levels of government must work together. There is no sign that attention is being paid to this aspect. A Clean India is not as simple to achieve as it sounds. It has to have a combination of psychological methods to change people's attitudes; technologies to achieve suitable toilet designs (for homes, schools and communities); well-thought-out arrangements for keeping them clean; water specialists to arrange water availability in different topographies and climates; garbage management, and public governance to ensure coordinated actions on all fronts.

The government must work on these aspects if this programme is not to waste the vast sums it has on projects like cleaning the Ganga.

The author is former director-general, National Council of Applied Economic Research