I was shocked to read a 17-year-old girl who committed suicide in Jharkhand’s Dumka district after her parents turned down her request to construct a toilet in the house. According to reports, the parents wanted to save money for the girl’s marriage. The girl was found hanging from the ceiling of her room by family members, according to police officials. This is the irony of our society, poverty has limited options. On the other hand, there are many commercials on TV which are thought provoking, that mentions the importance of toilets. Some ads even say, a good thought begins with having a good toilet at home.
About one billion people in the developing world or 15 per cent of the global population, practice open defecation. India is the country with the highest number of people practicing open defecation: around 600 million people. This is 47 per cent of India’s population. Most of it occurs in rural areas where the prevalence is estimated at 65 per cent of the population.
PM Narendra Modi, several times mentioned in his speech that eliminating open defecation is the main aim of improving access to sanitation worldwide, as it can have a significant impact on public health if a large proportion of the population openly defecates. Even if toilets are available, people still need to be convinced to refrain from open defecation and use toilets. Therefore, the need for behaviour change is critical in addition to the provision of toilets.
Open defecation is the practice of defecating outside and not into a designated toilet. It is especially problematic in areas where people defecate in fields, urban parks, rivers and open trenches in close proximity to the living space of others. This behaviour may be result of cultural practices, the lack of access to toilets or both. Extreme poverty and lack of sanitation are closely linked, so eliminating open defecation is an important part of development efforts. High levels of open defecation in a country are usually correlated with a high child mortality, as well as high levels of undernutrition, high levels of poverty and large disparities between the rich and poor.
India Human Development report has been saying this for a while. The situation is worse in the villages, where two-thirds of the homes don’t have toilets. Open defecation is rife, and remains a major impediment in achieving millennium development goals which include reducing by half the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation by 2015.
The finding of a World Bank report which was released on the eve of the first UN World Toilet Day says many things. The report also states that cognitive thinking of children increases with the improved sanitation. So, this means India’s future is suffering because we do not have enough toilets or latrines. Lack of proper sanitation facilities impacts the health, education and environment. Exposure to fecal germs also impacts the height of the children. Children who are exposed to fecal germs are shorter than the ones who are not. On an average, children in India are even shorter than children in Africa because we do not have proper sanitation facilities. Now, where are we heading?
India is at number one as far as open defecation is concerned, making Indians more prone to water borne diseases. Because of open defecation, ground water gets contaminated which can be used for drinking and cleaning purposes. Basic health is determined by the number of factors such as personal hygiene, clean environment, safe and clean drinking water, nutritional intake and healthcare facilities. Again we lack in this. It is estimated that everyday approximately 100,000 tonnes of human excreta is deposited in the open. As per UNICEF, there are 10 million viruses, one million bacteria, 1,000 parasite cysts and 100 parasite eggs in each gram of human excreta. It is also said that much of the malnutrition problem in India is the result of lack of proper sanitation facilities. Open defecation is really a shame to all our economic and technological progress. It is not that, the problem is not understood and untouched. However, mismanagement has played important role in this matter. As per the records of the government, India has been constructing more than 3.5 million toilets a year making it 9,589/day, 400/hour or seven toilets/minute.
Earlier, March 2012 was kept as a target to provide every Indian a toilet but now the target has shifted to March 2022. The Total Sanitation Campaign or Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan is the main sanitation program run by the government to eradicate the issue by targeting the main affected rural area. However, I don’t know why do people defecate in open? One reason might be the lack of toilets. The other are – people just do not follow the habit of using toilets because these lack the required privacy and availability of water. Also, people are not aware of the associated benefits with good sanitation. Almost, all the sanitation programs first think of constructing toilet and then managing water supply. However, one fruitful program started by a non-profit organisation, Gram Vikas follows an opposite strategy. They are first supplying water connection and then building toilets and they are quite successful. Under this program, 700 villages in Odisha have ended defecating in the open. Villagers also collect money to construct more toilets under this scheme. For this, Corpus fund has been created and every household deposits Rs. 1000 with a corpus fund. Generally, mobilisation of a community is a problem as it takes six to 14 months. A vigilance group is also selected by the village to take care of the toilets and drinking water. Sanitation in India is not a single problem but it leads to health issue as well as water problems arises due to it. For the success of any program, involvement of community is must. Along with this, a perfect management defines the success of any campaign or program.
Modi has made hundreds of assurances and announcements, let see in next four years, how much he can deliver?
