Gist of Yojana November 2019 Issue: Sanitation for a Healthy Society

1. Introduction
2. Sanitation Economy and Dignity of the Sanitation Workers 
3. The People’s Policy
4. Gram Panchayats: Beyond ODF
5. Rural Sanitation: Sustaining Behavioural Change
6. Sanitising the Country
7. Solid Waste Management: The Way Forward
8. Swachh Bharat: A Chapter of Success
9. TID-BITS

Culture of a nation influences the culture of its sanitation practices. India as a society had a long-cherished tradition of cleanliness imbibed in its culture, beliefs and lifestyles. Ablution practices found in different belief systems, cleaning and decorating homes before festivals, respecting the balance of the five elements of nature—water, earth, air, fire, and sky— symbolise the importance of sanitation and environment in the cultural context. The circular economy of waste management which is the primary governing policy worldwide has the basic tenet of ‘lesser wastage’, which is ingrained in Indian ethos of giving away, sharing and donating-books, clothes, utensils and other household and community goods—even passing from one generation to other. Aparigraha (non-possession) mentioned in Gandhiji’s vows also promotes ‘not hoarding anything that we do not need today’, leading to lesser wastage and waste generation.

• Gradually, with the rise in consumerism and societal divide, generation of waste increased at one hand and ideal sanitation practices were compromised on the other.
• The behavioral patterns changed resulting in huge heaps of landfills burgeoning on the outskirts of urban pockets, contaminating the water, soil, and eventually affecting the lives, especially of the marginalized.
• Rural India, on the other hand, still struggles with issues like open defecation as a societal norm, lack of drainage system and poor sanitation awareness, and sensitization.

 

The United Nations Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) provides a broad framework to achieve:

1. Universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all.
2. Achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all.
3. End open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations.
4. Improve water quality by reducing pollution.
5. Eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and materials.
6. Expand international co-operation and capacity-building support to developing countries in water and sanitation-related activities, etc.

• Sanitation is a virtue which comes from within — be it an individual, a society or a nation. It is reflected in our attitude towards our surroundings and what we wish to leave for our future generations.
• Any transformation in this regard would require an enormous behavioral change, a change in entrenched attitudes, which needs to be sustained through developing and maintaining adequate infrastructure, reinforcing healthy sanitation practices, sound leadership at all levels, public participation, and effective communication. The country is witnessing a mass movement to address this challenge.
• Systemic behavioral change is a collective responsibility.

Sanitation is vitally linked to human dignity. It is important to ensure dignity of labour of the sanitation workers who need to be duly recognized for the service they are doing to the society by keeping the surroundings clean. They need to be unburdened with the sheer enormity of waste being generated.

 

The Sanitation sector has emerged as a big economy in India in recent years and the future potential is immense. Sanitation economy is not just about toilets but also includes provision of clean drinking water, elimination of waste and converting them into useful resources and digitised sanitation system that optimises data for operating efficiencies, maintenance, consumer use and health information insights. Sanitation, in addition to an economy in itself is also cross-cutting theme and has the potential to contribute in a big way to the growth and employment of many other sectors such as health, consumer goods and new and renewable energy.

• A recent report by the Toilet Board Coalition estimated the sanitation market opportunity in India alone to be at US$ 32 billion in 2017 and doubling to US$ 62 billion by 2021.
• India’s success in this sector would help in achieving the global Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of providing access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and ending open defecation by 2030 (SDG 6; Target 6.2).
• The sector holds immense potential in terms of generating large number of new job opportunities for the youth.

 

Government’s Initiatives towards Sanitation:

• The first building block of having a ‘New India’ by 2022 is the pledge towards a ‘Clean India’.
• The major initiatives launched by the Government are Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) in 2014, Jal Shakti Abhiyan (JSA) and curbing single-use plastics in 2019.
• The first major initiative towards sanitation was the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) with an aim to accelerate sanitation coverage to achieve an Open Defecation Free (ODF) and Clean India.
• A new Ministry of Jal Shakti was created in 2019 by reorganizing the existing ministries and departments.
• Government launched Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) to bring piped-water supply to all households (Har Ghar Jal) by 2024.
• Like the SBM, the JJM mission target is quite ambitious and challenging given the fact that of the 18 crore rural households, only 3 crore rural households have piped drinking water.

 

Dignity to the Sanitation Workers:

• Sanitation workers, especially the manual scavengers suffer from social stigma with respect to their work.
• The Government has taken a number of steps to effect changes in the perception of the people towards the sanitation workers.
• In 2014, the Prime Minister himself initiated a campaign to urge the public to change the way we call sanitary workers as Kudawala\Kacharawala to Safai Wala.
• Further, during recently concluded Kumbh Mela in Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj, the Prime Minister went on to the extent of washing the feet of the sanitation workers in recognising their efforts and contribution in keeping the Meal and its surroundings clean and hygienic.

 

Legal Protection for Eliminating Manual Scavenging:

• Sanitation workers are divided broadly into two categories: Safai Karmcharis & Manual Scavengers.
• In order to prohibit employment of manual scavengers, the Government had enacted Prohibition of Employment of Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013.
• The objectives of this Act are to:
  • Eliminate the insanitary latrines.
  • Prohibit (a) employment as manual scavengers and, (b) hazardous manual cleaning of sewer and septic tanks and
  • Survey of manual scavengers and their rehabilitation within a time- bound manner.
• Any contravention of the provisions is punishable with imprisonment up to 2 years and fine up to Rs.2 lakh, or both.
• In 2014, convergence between various line Ministries and their respective schemes were achieved for faster identification and elimination of insanitary latrines and for eradication of manual scavenging.

 

Ensuring Minimum Wages, Safe Working Conditions and Pension Benefits:

• For ensuring minimum wages and timely payment of wages to all workers including the sanitary workers, Ministry of Labour and Employment has enacted the Code on Wages Bill, 2019.
• This bill also provides for higher wage premium for workers engaged in arduous and hazardous work in difficult circumstances.
• The code also prohibits gender discrimination in wages, recruitment, and conditions of work, which will benefit women sanitation workers.
• In addition to the Code on Wages, 2019 Government also introduced in the Lok Sabha, the Code on Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions, 2019.
• The various enabling provisions of this Code will not only boost the well-being of the sanitation workers but will also ensure safe and healthy work environment.
• Efforts are currently underway to draft a Social Security Code, which will benefit not just the minuscule organised sector workers but will also include vast unorganised sector workers under its scope and ambit.
• The Ministry has also introduced a pension scheme for unorganised workers namely Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maan-dhan (PM-SYM) to ensure old-age protection for unorganised workers, which will benefits the sanitation workers.

 

Housing Education, Financial Assistance and Skill Development Schemes:

• Under Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) of the Ministry of Rural Development, there is a provision for providing assistance for construction of new houses and upgradation of kutcha or dilapidated houses.
  • Assistance of up to Rs.75,000 is provided to the eligible households.
  • A provision has been made under IAY for special coverage of identified manual scavengers for providing them housing facilities in rural areas, irrespective of their BPL Status.
• Under the Scheme of Pre-Matric Scholarship, the children of manual scavengers, tanners and flayers, waste pickers and those engaged in hazardous cleaning are also provided scholarship between Rs. 225 to Rs. 700 per month for a period of 10 months in a year for pursuing their studies up to class 10th.
• Further, the National Safai Karamcharis Finance and Develpoment Corporation (NSKFDC) acts as an Apex Corporation for the all-round socio-economic upliftment of the safai karmacharis, scavengers and their dependents by creating alternate means of livelihoods.
  • NSKFDC was set up in 1997 as a wholly-owned GoI Undertaking under the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment.
  • It also provides financial assistance at concessional rates of interest to the State Channelizing Agencies (SCAs), Regional Rural banks (RRBs), and Nationalised Banks for onward disbursement to the target group of NSKFDC.
  • It also implements non-loan –based schemes in the form of imparting skill development training to the eligible to the members.
  • Apart from these, the NSKFDC is the Nodal Agency for implementation of the Self-Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers (SRMS) scheme.

 

Protecting Sanitation Workers through Ayushman Bharat:

• Ayushmaan Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojanais another flagship initiative of the government.
• The Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) will cover over 10.74 crore poor and deprived families providing coverage up to Rs. 5 lakh per family per year (on a family floater basis) for almost all secondary care and most of tertiary care hospitalisation, with no cap on family size.
• The developments that have followed with the launch of PMJAY speak about the accelerated progress India is making towards achievement of Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

 

Way Forward:

• Maintaining the Open-Defecation Free(ODF) status is important so that villagers are not returning to the old practice of open defecation. We must focus on putting in place a robust monitoring mechanism to check the condition of sanitation at the district and Panchayat level.
• The focus must be on circular economy for converting our waste into resources.
• The first step in this regard will be 100 per cent achievements in terms of waste segregation, successful disposal, and streamlining waste infrastructure.
• Despite a ban on manual scavenging, its existence is reported from time to time. Therefore, use of technology can play a key role.
• Prioritization and faster identification of insanitary latrines and manual scavengers through a time- bound plan must be seriously and earnestly pursued for effective rehabilitation of manual scavengers.

 

The Swachh Bharat Mission has identified four key pillars that provided the Swachh Bharat Mission – Gramin (SBM-G), its strategic focus and administrative disruption which led to efficient on-ground implementation.

• To build faith in the administrative system, the mission demonstrated some quick wins by targeting the districts with highest sanitation coverage to become ODF on priority. It created a demonstration effect for others to learn from and created a belief in the system.
• Continuous engagement with the implementers made the mission agile.
• The SBM-G made sanitation glamorous by engaging extensively with the media, leveraging popular culture, and associating Bollywood stars, etc.
• And lastly, the mission kept the buzz alive throughout its lifecycle through regular, large-scale events with the Prime Minister at important milestones, helping sanitation stay on top of public recall.

 

The four key pillars:

• First is political leadership. Arguably, the biggest game-changer for the SBM-G was the Prime Minister investing his personal political capital in the mission.
• Second is public financing. Over Rs. 1 lakh crore was committed to ensuring universal access to sanitation. About 90 per cent of 10 crore households which received toilets were from socially and economically weaker sections of society and they received financial incentives to build and use toilets.
• Third is part nerships. The SBM-G Partnered with implementers and influencers alike. This “all hands on deck” approach, making sanitation everyone’s business, helped to mainstream it into the national consciousness.
• Fourth is peoples’ participation. The SBM-G trained over half a million swachhagrahis, grassroot motivators, who triggered behaviour change in every village of India. A large-scale transformation can be truly successful if it captures the imagination of the people and becomes a people’s movement or a Jan Andolan.

 

Conclusion:

• The Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation recently released the forward-looking 10-year Rural Sanitation Strategy to move from ODF to ODF Plus. focusing on sustaining the SBM-G gains, ensuring that no one is left behind, and ensuring access to solid and liquid waste management for all villages.
• The next ambitious goal announced by the Prime Minister is to ensure piped water supply to all households by 2024.
• With the programme in mission mode for the next five years, this will be an additional shot in the arm for SBM-G’s sustainability efforts.

 

Lessons That Shaped Swachh Bharat

The approach to Swachh Bharat Mission – Gramin (SBM-G) was structured to allow more freedom in execution and a few unique advances included: Strong public and political willpower; adequate funding; district-level flexibility in administering the necessary activities and campaigns to increase coverage; improving the ratio of financial investment in hardware with strong investment in software (i.e. behaviour change communication) with the community-level outcomes (like-ODF status) – not single households in mind; utilising the Community Approaches to Sanitation (CAS) methodology.

Concurrently, the Ministry of Panchayati Raj played a more visible role in strengthening Gram Panchayats’ (GPs’) ability to provide services, which included SBM-G targets. With the call to shift towards GP ownership, there have been efforts to strengthen the 3 Fs available to GPs:

1. Funds
2. Functionaries
3. Functions

Through the national Gram Panchayat Development Plans (GPDP) guidance of 2018, Ministry of Panchayati Raj has made efforts to ensure that GPDPs are appropriately convergent in reflecting how Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) investments and interventions can be mainstreamed into existing budgetary considerations.

Giving GPs the Central Role:

• In the States where GPs played a pivotal role, this progressive investment in GP leadership and ownership stood out under SBM-G as compared to the roll-out of earlier programmes.
• In addition, rural families were more apt to pick up guidance issued by their local leaders.
• To frame the new phase, in September 2019, the Ministry of Jal Shakti (MoJS) released a newly drafted 10-year Rural Sanitation Strategy, which lays down the steps to be taken till 2029 to ensure that sanitation access is sustained and further developed.
• The new framework strategically place GPs at the centre of the coordinating efforts to ensure that SLWM activities are taking place in all villages.
• This ensure that the principle of ‘subsidiarity’, which states that ‘decisions should always be taken at the lowest possible level or closest to where they will have their effect’.
• While urban areas may be able to build and utilise larger faecal sludge treatment solutions, rural communities that fall outside of the radius of off-site door-to-treatment services will have to come up with locally sustainable options that function efficiently at the GP level.
• Finally, with the launch of Jal Jeevan Mission, which aims to provide drinking water to all households by 2024, it is important to converge sanitation programming with upcoming water supply work to ensure that water sources remain safe and uncontaminated and that sanitation services are sustained.

 

ODF Plus: Key Interventions To Be Focused Upon:

• Sustained usage of Individual Household Latrines (IHHL).
• Sanitation coverage of public spaces (through public and community toilets).
• Implementation of Solid and Liquid Waste Management (SLWM) in rural areas including compost pits/decentralized waste treatment facilities.

 

The Way Forward

• The MoJS and UNICEF are collaborating on orienting master trainers at the State and district levels who will then interact with the GP representatives across all states.
• There are still many lessons to be learned, especially when it comes to addressing critical challenges, such as menstrual waste management, safe disposal of child faeces and retro-fitting of pit-toilet models to make them functional and sustainable.
• These issues and more can only be effectively addressed if GPs are firstly given the authority and there is buy-in and leadership from the GP leaders, because the power truly lies with them to make a lasting difference for their people.

A major differentiating feature of Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) from all other earlier programmes has been its demand – driven nature where the primary objective is to bring about behaviour change leading to the generation of demand for construction of toilets as well as to increase the use of toilets. Swachh Bharat Mission focuses on collective behaviour change of the entire community. Construction of toilets by itself does not ensure that the rural population will use toilets on a regular basis. There are significant cultural and behavioural factors that act as barriers to the use of toilets. In most behaviour change programmes, it is observed that the adoptees, after a time interval, lapse back to their earlier habits defeating the very purpose of the programme.

Challenges:

• Apart from the behavioural factors, it is found that the design of the toilet, availability of sanitation materials, access to water, and political or social leadership account for a higher demand for construction and use of toilets.
• Many villages are not homogenous and are fragmented along the caste and religious lines. Collective behaviour change in a village is easier when the whole village homogeneous but difficult when there are more conflicts.
• Caste-based notion of purity and pollution makes it difficult to construct pit latrine which requires emptying it in future.
• The challenge of behaviour change is often compounded by the diversity in Indian society, and therefore, would require more contextual understanding. As a matter of fact, without having local knowledge into the fold, the sanitation campaign will lead to fruitless activities.

 

Recommendations:

• The present programme, while widely appreciated, leaves a scope of the new adoptees to get back to their original behaviour. To prevent this, the programme may include the provision of more than one toilet for larger households.
• More emphasis may be given for information dissemination at the ground level.
• Improvement of sanitation is linked with other indicators of living conditions. Hence, it is important to have a better infrastructure at the household level as well as public service.
• At the same time, higher income of households with higher purchasing power for durable goods would lead to better living standards of living and thus sanitation practice. Also, emphasis on female literacy is imperative for better sanitation coverage.

Gandhji while travelling the length and breadth of India during first two years after returning from South Africa, had realised that sanitation and social hygiene was a huge and perhaps insurmountable problem. It was not the lack of knowledge alone but also the mind—set which prevented people from attending to the most vital problem affecting health and environs. In South Africa, Gandhiji admitted that Indians had problems with sanitation and hygiene as alleged by the British, although he successfully argued and protested that the main reason for discrimination was colour prejudice and threat of competition.

• The seriousness of the problem of sanitation and hygiene among rural populace in the country had become evident to Gandhiji when they began their work in Champaran.
• Gandhiji’s conviction about the need of education, training and practice for orientation and aptitude led him to teach sanitation and hygiene in Champaran and in Ashram Schools.
• Sanitation and hygiene became indispensable and foundational work in all the political programmes and social reforms.
• For Gandhiji, sanitation and hygiene became an important agenda in India. His desire to remove the blot of untouchability from the Indian society for good compelled him to work on toilets and hygiene.
• He had not accepted the social tradition of the scavenging work to be done by a section of people who were condemned to do and further condemned for doing so.
• His Ashram had special stress upon engaging no outside labour for this work. The members themselves attended to the whole of the sanitation in turns.
• Sanitation and hygiene were on agenda in Sevagram Ashram too, which was Gandhiji’s home from April 1936 to August 1947.
• In almost every Congress major convention Gandhi in his speech touched upon the sanitation issue. For Gandhi, insanitation was an evil.
• He considered sanitation work as one of the most important works of the municipalities. He developed an admiration for the municipal administration in the West with regards to sanitation.
• Gandhiji edited and contributed articles and notes to several periodicals. He wrote about sanitation and hygiene related issues frequently in Navajivan and Young India and later in Harijan.
• He said, “let me assure you that education in three R’s (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) is as nothing compared to a sound grounding in the elements of hygiene and sanitation”.

 

On 29 January, 1948, a day before he was martyred, he drafted the Constitution for the proposed Lok Sevak Sangh. In this document the sixth function of a sevak was drafted:

• He shall educate the village folk in sanitation and hygiene and take all measures for prevention of ill health and diseases among them.
• Sanitation and hygiene were and had reminded a priority for Gandhiji’s all his life and it appeared in his last.

Solid Waste Management (SWM) is a major problem in India, where urbanisation, industrialisation, and economic growth have resulted in increased municipal solid waste (MSW) generation. The main objective of an efficient SWM system is to maximise resource recovery and energy generation from waste in the processing facility and minimise waste disposal in landfills.

Legal Framework

• Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change (MoEF&CC) notified MSW (Management and Handling) Rules, 2000 and the revamped Solid Waste Management Rules in 2016 to ensure proper solid waste management in India.
• Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 delineates the responsibility of different stakeholders including the MoEF&CC, MoHUA, Central pollution Control Board (CPCB), State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs), state Urban Departments, Urban Local Bodies, Gram Panchayats, as well as waste generators.
• While MoHUA, State Urban Departments and Local Bodies have mainly been entrusted with the responsibility of development of infrastructure related to waste management, MoEF&CC CPCB, SPCB, and Pollution Control Committee (PCC) have been entrusted with the responsibility of monitoring the enforcement of the Rules.

 

Status of Solid waste management

• The overall solid waste generated in the country has been estimated to be 1,52,076 Tons Per Day (TPD) as per the Annual Report 2018-19 submitted by the SPCBs/PCCs.
  • Of this, 98.5% is collected and only 35% of waste is treated.
  • 33% of waste is landfilled and one-third of the total waste generated in the country remains unaccounted.
  • The unaccounted waste is littered on streets up in dumpsites.
• Recently, with National Green Tribunal’s intervention, bio-mining (a method for stabilisation of waste so as to minimise its adverse environmental impact) of these dumpsites, has been initiated in 11 states.

 

 SWM Initiatives:

• Initiatives taken by CPCB
  • Guidelines on Legacy Waste
  • Guidelines on Buffer Zone
  • Guidelines for Management of Sanitary waste
  • Setting up of selection Criteria for waste processing technologies.

 

• Initiatives taken by States/union Territories
  • Door-to door collection, waste segregation, and transportation
  • Land for waste processing facilities

 

• Setting up Waste –to-Energy plants
  • Four waste-to- energy plants have been set-up in the country of which three plants are in Delhi.
  • Electricity generated by these plants is purchased by the power regulators and is fed to the national grid.

 

• Development of Model Cities
  • Model cities have implemented efficient methods for collection, segregation, and waste processing facilities.

 

• Increased Judicial Intervention
  • After the enactment of the NGT Act 2010, in past few years we have seen increasing judicial intervention in ensuring compliance with the provisions of SWM Rules.

 

Challenges:

• Segregation of waste at source by waste generators.
• Lack of infrastructure for collection and transportation of waste.
• Availability of land for setting up of waste collection and transportation facilities.
• Techno-economically viable solutions for fresh & legacy waste.
• Management of legacy waste.
• Rural areas not covered in most of the States/UTs.
• Enforcement issues.

 

Way forward:

• The responsibility of the waste generator lies essentially in proper segregation of the waste which is the core requirement of effective solid waste management.
• Creating public awareness for involvement of different stakeholders for SWM is the need of the hour. Development of ULB – wise action plan for collection, segregation, transportation and processing of waste will help achieve this objective.
• There is a need for emphasising on setting up of waste processing facilities.
• Research & development activities must be given fillip with focus on resource recovery from waste
• Clear allocation of responsibility to ULBs and waste generators for setting up of infrastructure and for involving informal sector in waste collection segregation must be ensured.
• There is a need for adequate technical support to ULBs for processing technology and practices in waste management.

Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) stands out with women being at the centre of all interventions and also leading the march in many cases and reclaiming dignity and empowerment in the process. Women in rural hinterland not only ventured out for discussing sanitation and convincing rest of the folks, they moved a step ahead by staking claim in men-dominated masonry work.

• Women took up the name of ‘Rani Mistris’ by constructing toilets, now affectionately called ‘Izzat Ghar’ or Dignity Home in many parts of the country.
• Children and youth volunteered in a big way by inculcating Swachhata in behaviour and volunteered for Swachhata Shramdaan in mobilisation campaigns.
• School children have been the visible change agents at many places with their demands cries of “Mujhe Shauchalay Chahiye” triggering a sense of urgency among parents and school management alike.
• The success story of Swachh Bharat Mission is not complete without underline mention of the Information Education and Communication (IEC) interventions which constituted the heart of the programme.
• About 4.5 lakhs swachhagrahis led the inter-personal communication across household in the village holding forth the community –level narratives on sanitation and the needs for Swachhata.
• Mass media campaigns like Darwaza Band and Shaucha Singh captured the imagination and thought process of the common people.
• Campaigns like ‘Swachhata Hi Seva’, ‘Satyagraha se Swachhagraha’, Chalo Champaran’ and ‘Swachh Shakti’ Stand out as great examples of social mobilisation for the cause of sanitation.

 

Significant economic gains under SBM:

• The latest Environmental impact study by UNICEF found that in terms of faecal contamination non-ODF villages were 11.25 times more likely to have their groundwater sources and 1.13 times more likely to have their soil contaminated and 1.48 times more likely to have their food contaminated and 2.68 times more likely to have their household drinking water to be contaminated. A WHO 2018 study had estimated that over 3 lakh lives will be saved by 2019 when India turn ODF.
• The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in a study conducted in 2017 reported that non –ODF areas have around 44% higher cases of diarrhea among children.
• IMF 2017-18 Gender Equality study indicated approximately 10% reduction in time spent by women in household and child care and 1.5% increase in women participation in the workforce.

Case study:

• The case of Peddapalli District in Telangana, was recently conferred the top honours for cleanliness, points to the multi-dimensional nature of the sanitation task. The district is free of any open sewerage or drainage besides having constructed a large number of segregated communication toilets for all.
• The district has been practicing Swachh Shukravar (clean Friday) when all government employees, irrespective of rank and grade, join the villagers in the morning to clean up, build sanitation facilities and plant trees.