lR;eso t;rs - Ministry of Environment and Forests

The higher percentages of urban sanitation have largely been due
to private initiatives at the household level and due to high
concentration of household toilets in the larger urban metro
cities.
As far as waste water drainage management is concerned, only
Toilets are not an issue for you and me. But for millions in
India’s villages, the absence of a toilet is a reality. For
many it’s not even a need that is felt. For others, it is a
question of financial priorities. Over 700 million people
in India still live without proper sanitation. The resulting
poor hygiene is responsible for approximately 1,000
children under five years dying every day due to
diarrhoea alone. Poor hygiene, lack of sanitation and
inadequate or unsafe water together contribute to about
88 per cent of diarrhoea deaths.
The fact is that sanitation issues did not command
sufficient public investment till the end of the 1970s. A
total of 108 million man-days, which is equivalent to
Rs 12 billion, are lost every year due to sanitation related
diseases. Sanitation acquired importance only in the
1980s when the Government of India encouraged the
construction of household toilets in the villages under the
Central Rural Sanitation Programme.
3.9 per cent of the total households in rural India have the closed
drainage system of waste water while in urban India 34.5 per
cent of the total households have closed drainage facility. There
is very high percentage of urban households without any
drainage system at all (approx. 22.1 per cent).
RURAL INDIA IS AWASH IN A SANITATION REVOLUTION
N. C. Saxena
However, the programme did not become a major sucess
as it promoted a single design at a single price and gave a
high subsidy with limited funds available. As a result, the
government was only able to allot one or two latrines per
village and this often went to the prominent members.
The subsequent Total Sanitation Campaign has sought to
increase toilet construction and usage by shifting to low
subsidies and a greater stress on creating household
involvement through awareness. Its sucess is evident
from the fact that while in 1997-98, only about 1.3
million toilets were built, in 2003-04 the figure jumped to
(N.C. Saxena is a Former Secretary, Planning Commission)
Box 3.5.2: Flush with Success
over 6 million, followed by over 9 million toilets being
built in 2006-07. It is expected that the number of
household toilets constructed during 2007-08 may
actually exceed a crore.
The key to this sucess has been the involvement of the
Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) under the Nirmal Gram
Puraskar, the incentive award scheme. The PRIs have
been motivated to promote sanitation in their community
by influencing behavioural change and creating a
demand. The Nirmal Gram Puraskar awards have seen an
enormous increase in the number of awards from across
the country from 40 PRIs awarded in 2004-05.
Approximately, 30,000 PRIs have already applied for the
award in 2008. All this has meant that states like West
Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh are close to
achieving the ‘Millennium Development Targets’. While
it is important to celebrate the gains made in increasing
sanitation coverage nationwide, we must not forget that it
is only the beginning, there is a long way to go before total
sanitation is achieved. The challenge ahead is not only to
maintain the momentum, but also to accelerate the pace of
sanitation coverage.
Although 40 million households have been reached so far,
there is still more than 70 million households across the
country without toilets. The Total Sanitation Campaign
and Nirmal Gram Puraskar have shown that sanitation is
achievable. But before we turn the page, we must know
that the campaign needs consistent and dedicated support.
What we need is not a spring cleaning but a sea change
conducted on a war footing.
Key Environmental Issues- Managing Urbanization
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