Sixty-six years after attaining freedom, having undertaken planned development over 11 Five-Year Plans, isn't it a shame that we still talk about how a major section of our society still has to defecate in the open, just because the basic facility of a toilet is not available? Even though we have had any number of programmes to help improve the situation, the fact remains that either having proper toilets is not one of our priorities or there are no time-bound efforts to ensure toilets for all in a definitive and purposeful manner.
The latest NSSO survey says only 32 per cent of rural households have their own toilets; a huge 68 per cent do not have this basic facility. Census figures say 69.3 per cent of rural households do not have this facility. The Twelfth Plan document bluntly admits that open defecation by around 600 million people is our biggest national shame. When it comes to the urban population, census data shows that 13 per cent of urban households do not have access to any form of latrine facility and defecate in the open. Out of about 14 million slum households in the cities and towns, 66 per cent do not have toilets. Why is it that while some 54 per cent rural households and 72.7 per cent of urban slums have access to telephones, access to toilets is much lower than even these figures? Over 92 per cent of rural households in Jharkhand do not have this facility, followed by MP with 87 per cent and Odisha with 86 per cent. These states incidentally have the highest levels of child malnutrition in the country. Could there be some lessons from states like Kerala and Punjab where the percentage of households without toilet facilities is as low as 6.8 per cent and 29.6 per cent respectively?
What we have constantly failed to recognise and accept in both our rural and urban framework is that water and sanitation are closely linked and hence the two should go hand in hand. As the India Rural Development Report, 2012-13 points out, without water, sanitation cannot be hygienic and unsafe sanitation is a leading cause of water contamination and disease. There are figures to prove that faecally transmitted infection caused by widespread open defecation is a major contributory factor to the high incidence of malnourishment. Our sanitation deficit is estimated to result in a loss of about 6 per cent of the country's GDP. A large part of India's malnutrition burden is due to the unhygienic environment in which children grow up.
It is not that there have been no efforts or focus or allocation of funds to address this critical issue. The central Rural Sanitation Programme of 1986, the first national effort to improve sanitation coverage, was followed by the Total Sanitation Campaign introduced in 1999. The aim then was to eradicate open defecation by 2017 by providing basic sanitation facilities. TSC has been renamed Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan with the aim of accelerating rural sanitation coverage so that 50 per cent of gram panchayats attain Nirmal Gram status by the year 2017 and Nirmal Bharat status to be achieved by 2022. Considering that we have different 'avatars' of schemes and programmes, each time asserting that the final target is to be achieved in a given number of years, one is not sure whether, in the now-projected somewhat distant future, we will be achieving what we should. We have a situation where the official claims are that 8.7 crore toilets have been constructed, whereas census 2011 reveals that only 5.16 crore households actually have toilets. What happened to the missing 3.5 crore toilets?
When it comes to India's urban areas, though the percentages and number of households not having access to a toilet may not be that high as rural areas, the fact remains that it is an even more difficult situation in the towns and cities, because open spaces are increasingly becoming a luxury. It is for the first time that the outlines of an urban sanitation vision were drawn up and reflected in the National Urban Sanitation Policy of 2008. In 2010, of the 423 class-one cities and towns covered in the first rating exercise, not one city could figure in the highest category of 'healthy and clean' city. There were only four cities in the country which could make it to the next level of what is called a 'recovering but still diseased' city.
It is important that 'toilets for all' is stated as a national priority and the task be jointly assigned to all the relevant ministries, making them accountable for time-bound targets. Required resources should be found as this is a national priority. Village pradhans and city mayors/chairpersons should be roped in and be made accountable for performance. Why can't each university in the country be assigned the role of providing support and actively getting engaged in the process?
Just building toilets is not enough, their maintenance should be institutionalised. Awareness creation must be a key hallmark of the programme; stakeholder involvement, especially keeping in mind regional variations and specificity of requirements, should also be emphasised. Let states compete for early credit and substantial incentives. And corporate social responsibility spending could be actively and effectively deployed.
Let us hope that that the next government is judged over a five-year period, particularly on the basis of the on the ground results they can achieve as far as 'toilets for all' is concerned.
The author is former Secretary, Urban Development, Government of India
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