| Sanitation
Analysis of coverage data from various sources shows
that despite the acceleration of coverage under the
Eighth Plan, only 19.2 per cent of rural households
have a toilet. However, at the same time 80 per cent
of all urban households in India have toilets, an increase
from the 1990 figures of around 64 per cent . According
to NFHS-3 (2005-2006), only 29 per cent of households
have improved toilet facilities (which include toilet
facilities with a flush, or a pour flush that is connected
to a sewer system, septic tank or pit latrine, a ventilated
improved pit (VIP) latrine, a biogas latrine, a pit
latrine with slab and twin pit, composting toilet).
Percentage of households having no toilet facility in
urban India showed a steady decline from NFHS-2 (19
per cent) to NFHS-3 (17 per cent)
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 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.
RURAL INDIA IS AWASH IN A SANITATION REVOLUTION
N. C. Saxena, Former Secretary, Planning Commission
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.
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 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.
National Urban Sanitation Policy
Sanitation is defined as safe management of human excreta,
including its safe
confinement treatment, disposal and associated hygiene-related
practices. While this policy pertains to management
of human excreta and associated public health and environmental
impacts, it is recognized that integral solutions need
to take account of other elements of environmental sanitation,
i.e. solid waste management; generation of industrial
and other specialized / hazardous wastes; drainage;
as also the management of drinking water supply.
According to Census 2001, 27.8% of Indians, i.e. 286
million people or 55 million households live in urban
areas1 – projections indicate that the urban population
would have grown to 331 million people by 2007 and to
368 million by 2012. 12.04 million (7.87 %) Urban households
do not have access to latrines and defecate in the open.
5.48 million (8.13%) Urban households use community
latrines and 13.4 million households (19.49%) use shared
latrines. 12.47 million (18.5%) households do not have
access to a drainage network. 26.83 million (39.8%)
households are connected to open drains. The status
in
respect of the urban poor is even worse. The percentage
of notified and non-notified slums without latrines
is 17 percent and 51 percent respectively. In respect
of septic latrines the availability is 66 percent and
35 percent. In respect of underground sewerage, the
availability is 30 percent and 15 percent respectively.
More than 37% of the total human excreta generated in
urban India, is unsafely disposed. This imposes significant
public health and environmental costs to urban areas
that contribute more than 60% of the
country’s GDP. Impacts of poor sanitation are
especially significant for the urban poor (22% of total
urban population), women, children and the elderly.
The loss due to diseases caused by poor sanitation for
children under 14 years alone in urban areas amounts
to Rs. 500 Crore at 2001 prices (Planning Commission-United
Nations International Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF),
2006). Inadequate discharge of untreated domestic/municipal
wastewater has resulted in contamination of 75 percent
of all surface water across India.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) enjoin upon
the signatory nations to extend access to improved sanitation
to at least half the urban population by 2015, and 100%
access by 2025. This implies extending coverage to households
without improved sanitation, and providing proper sanitation
facilities in public places to make cities opendefecation
free.
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Global Level
Clean water and adequate sanitation are two
critical factors in ensuring human health and protection
against a wide range of diseases. The International
Decade for Action: “Water for Life” 2005-2015
calls on the international community to strengthen efforts
to increase access to water and sanitation for all by
2015 in order to combat disease and improve the health
and well-being of the world’s population.
The challenge
Lack of safe water and adequate sanitation is the world’s
single largest cause of illness. Two million people,
most of them children, die every year from water-borne
diseases, such as diarrhoea, and millions become seriously
debilitated.
Lack of safe water and poor management of human wastes
can spread such diseases as diarrhoea, cholera, dysentery,
typhoid, hepatitis, polio, trachoma and tapeworms—many
of which can be fatal to people in the developing world.
Other water-associated diseases, such as malaria and
filariasis, affect vast populations worldwide. More
than 1 million people die every year from malaria alone.
Unsafe water and lack of sanitation are major factors
underlying many of the 10 million child deaths every
year. Repeated episodes of waterborne diseases like
diarrhoea can push children to the brink of survival,
leaving them too weak and malnourished to survive even
common childhood illnesses.
Most of these deaths are preventable. It is estimated
that almost half of the nearly 2 million deaths from
diarrhoea every year could be prevented through an understanding
of basic hygiene.
Water scarcity forces people to consume contaminated
water, leading to water-borne diseases. In 2005, half
a billion people lived in countries defined as water-stressed
or water-scarce. This figure is expected to increase
to 2.4 billion and 3.4 billion, respectively, by 2025,
with North Africa and West Asia particularly affected.
Increased urbanization is placing an enormous strain
on existing water and sanitation infrastructure. Urban
centres in developing countries have grown rapidly without
adequate infrastructure planning, resulting in millions
of immigrants who have little access to safe sanitation
or water supplies. This puts the entire population at
risk, causing serious environmental damage.
Growing numbers of HIV-positive people, who are especially
susceptible to disease and infection, depend on clean
water for their health and survival.
What needs to be done?
The “Water for Life” Decade is an opportunity
to increase efforts to provide safe water and sanitation
for all by 2015 and to ensure a healthy living environment.
Recommendations for action include
Effective and sustained advocacy on water, sanitation
and hygiene at all levels. Many decision makers underestimate
the critical role that water, hygiene and sanitation
play in poverty alleviation. The economic and health
benefits of providing access to water and sanitation
facilities significantly outweigh the cost of investment.
Water, sanitation and hygiene education programmes
in every school will have a profound impact on the health
of children, on learning, on the teaching environment
and on girls’ education.
Investment in sanitation infrastructure, such as latrines
and toilets, in homes and in every school is critical
to provision of a healthy environment and a sustainable
health policy. In areas affected by high unemployment,
villagers can be engaged as latrine builders, masons
and water pump operation and maintenance stewards.
Focus on long-term, sustainable service delivery in
addition to the construction of facilities.
Involve women fully in the planning and design of water
and sanitation facilities and look at water and sanitation
issues from a gender perspective. Successful training
of women in hygiene and sanitation practices will improve
the health of the entire population.
Involve the community to ensure long-term solutions.
Community approval and commitment to safe sanitation
has proved critical to the grassroots success of water
and sanitation projects, especially in rural areas.
Empowered communities manage water supply and sanitation
programmes that achieve long-term success.
Prioritize water and sanitation in disaster-response
planning. People affected by natural and manmade disasters
are more likely to become ill and die from diseases
related to inadequate or contaminated water and lack
of adequate sanitation than from any other single cause.
There is an urgent need to develop minimum standards
for post-disaster sanitation as well as emergency sanitation
services.
Source
Mahatma Gandhi said, “Sanitation is more important
than independence.”
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru said, “The day every Indian
has toilet to use, I will consider India a developed
country.”
V S Naipaul, nobel laureate litteratuer, said that
“Indians do not have modesty or decency – they defecate
in public.”
Sulabh Shauchalaya started sanitation movement in 1970s
and has campaigned for sanitation for past 40 years.
Inadequate sanitation cost India almost $54 billion
or 6.4% of the country’s GDP in 2006. Over 70% of this
economic impact or about $38.5 billion was health-related
with diarrhoea followed by acute lower respiratory infections
accounting for 12% of health related impacts.
These estimates are from ‘‘The Economic Impacts of
Inadequate Sanitation in India’’, a recent by the Water
and Sanitation Program (WSP), a global partnership administered
by the World Bank.
More than three-fourth of the premature mortality-related
economic losses are due to deaths and diseases in children
younger than five.
Diarrhoea among these children accounts for over 47%
of the total health-related impact of nearly $ 18 bn.
The report estimates that in rural areas, where 60%
of households are said to have access to improved sanitation,
there are almost 575 million people defecating in the
open. Similarly, in urban areas where 60-70 % of the
households are said to have access to sanitation, 54
million people defecate in the open and over 60% of
the waste water is discharged untreated.
This has led to huge public health costs, besides causing
450,000 deaths. It has led to an estimated 575 million
cases of diarrhoea, and 350,000 deaths from diarrhoea
alone, in the under-five age group.
It is the poorest who bear the greatest cost due to
inadequate sanitation.
The poorest fifth of the urban population bears the
highest per capita economic impact of Rs 1,699, much
more than the national average per capita loss due to
inadequate sanitation, which is Rs 961. Among rural
households too, the poorest fifth bears the highest
per capita loss in the rural area at over Rs 1,000.
Health impacts, accounting for the bulk of the economic
impacts, are followed by the economic losses due to
the time spent in obtaining piped water and sanitation
facilities , about $15 billion, and about $0.26 billion
of potential tourism revenue lost due to India’s reputation
for poor sanitation, the report says
Challenges
1. Total sewerage is almost impossible, because the
cost of total sewerage is very expensive. Sewerage costs
Rs. 27,000 per capita.
2. There is no culture of sanitation historically.
3. Political class is disconnected to poor people who
lack sanitation.
4. Sanitation policies are being planned by people without
experience.
5. Government figures depend on outlays, and not on
outcome. Hence measuring that can trigger change is
lacking in sanitation.
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