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Corporate India seems to have been inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call on Independence Day for building toilets in schools as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs.
Just a few days later at least two Indian companies, Bharti Airtel and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) announced that they will put in Rs 200 cr together to make the dream a reality. A few years ago, Coca-Cola India had taken the same steps, during the UPA regime with a budget of Rs 30 crore aimed to reach 1000 schools. It also roped in Sachin Tendulkar as the brand ambassador for the project.
Experts who have worked in the field say that with the money committed by Bharti and TCS, the country could build over 40,000 toilets across the country.But building toilets is only the beginning and the easiest part of the battle. After all, there are enough design options available currently in which a toilet with at least two soak pits( when one gets filled, you can use the other), a basin and a covered area could be constructed at around Rs 15,000 (if you want a temporary tin roof) to Rs 50,000 a piece (with brick and mortar), say experts. And the soak pits can survive for four to five years with regular maintenance.
Here are 5 issues that need consideration as the Narendra Modi led government team up with Corporate India to provide sanitation in rural Indian schools.
Clearly relying on municipal water might not be the best solution. So many like Coke have experimented with varying models-like build a tanker where water is filled up on a regular basis. Or invest in digging a bore well which will ensure that water is available in the school. But these at a micro level are not that easy to implement apart from the fact that it would add first to the overall initial investment as well as the operating cost of the toilet (regular supply of tankers). .
2) The second challenge they say is changing hygiene habits of kids going to school. Merely providing a toilet in school might not work when the kid is used to answering nature's call in the nearby open fields. Most hygiene lessons are learnt at home or in school. An NGO gives an interesting example in south India: the head of a school trust confessed that he has never used a closed toilet ever.
3) Of course, the other key issue is maintaining the toilets, keeping the soak pits clean for instance. Coke has found an innovative way to resolve the issue in a school in West Bengal. Children studying in the school have to pay a token Rs 1 per month, which goes in funding the maintenance. This is important because NGOs say that the model after the initial thrust has to be self-sustaining and not supported only through external financial aid.
4) The other key lesson to be learnt from Coca cola's tryst with funding of toilets in school is to make the students responsible for the process. So for instance, schools have set up something like a cabinet, with say one of the students appointed as health minister who would be responsible with his school mates to run the show.
Of course the good news is that many are experimenting with new cleaning technologies. For instance some schools are experimenting with a tablet which gets dissolved in the soak pit and cleans it up by converting the solid water into powder.
5) More interestingly, there is already a lot of focus on designing the toilets of the future. For instance just a few months ago, Delhi hosted the “Reinvent the Toilet Fair” organized by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The fair had representatives from top manufacturing companies like Lixil, Kohler, Roca, and Larsen &Toubro amongst others who are all engaged in developing a new generation of toilets. And many displayed new toilet technologies like new pit latrines, septic tank emptying technologies, as well as technologies to convert sludge-to-energy.
Surely Modi’s call to build toilets in schools across the country could give that much needed extra push.
