Daily News Analysis:-

GS2- Social justice

GS1- Social issues

Sanitation programs in India

1. India is obligated under SDG,6-clean water and sanitation, to ensure sanitation for all by 2030.
2. Central rural Sanitation program of 1986- highly subsidized program.
3. Total sanitation campaign of 1999– Low subsidized but high demand driven sanitation program.
4. Mission mode based sanitation campaign- Swachh Bharat Mission to achieve complete open defecation free by 2019.

Success claimed under SBM

1. Sanitation coverage under SBM isfrom 34% in 2014 to 100% in 2019.
2. SBM 2 (ODF+), aimed for solid and liquid waste management. It maintains the toilets constructed.
3. 85% of villages in India are ODF+.

Critical view of success

Private survey conducted indicated problems in sanitation coverage still persist.

1. Only 59% in Bihar, 76% in Telangana, 66% in Gujarat had toilet access.
2. Among the above accessed toilets, 38% of households in Bihar, 50% in Gujarat, 15% in Telangana had at least one member who did not use the toilets.
3. 27% of households in Gujarat and 61% in West Bengal didn’t have their own toilets.
4. National annual rural sanitation survey (NARSS)- There is 10% discrepancy between owning toilets and using toilets.
5. 96% of all rural households  had toilets.
6. Out of which 86% used their toilets.

Causes for non-usgae of toilets

1. Superstructure and substructure failure:
2. Breaking of taps, collapse of tanks, commode damage. doors damage.
3. Access to water:
4. Remote and desert zones uses toilets less due to lack of all time water supply.
5. High toilet usage is seen only in the houses where doorstep access to water is found.
6. Social norms:
7. Among Upper castes the social norms restrict them to use toilets and still ODF is high among them.
8. Attached bathroom:
9. Lack of an attached bathroom is one of the reason for lesser toilet usage.
10. Household size:
11. Larger the household size lesser the usage of toilets due to overcrowding.
12. Only 3-4% have more than one toilet.

6. Pits are full: even though SBM dealt with this problem it is not being implemented. Twin pits construction.
7. Left out people: according to government survey more than 5% of households are left out.

Way forward

1. Jal Jeevan Mission to provide doorstep water supply to that toilets gets functionalized.
2. Social awareness among social networks: To encourage the usage of toilets defying social norms.
3. Persuading, influencing and social engineering to be done for behavioral changes, through statistics of diseases emerging due to lack of sanitation.

3. SBM 2 for addressing the pit full problems- Implementing soak pits to deal with the problem.
4. SBM 2 should ensure more than one toilets for households having members beyond a certain threshold.
5. SBM2 should ensure attached bathrooms are constructed.
6. Using Grameen Awas Yojana to build back collapsed structures.
7. Synergy between schemes and programs.
8. Lack of toilet usage is also attributed to low socio-economic well being hence, it can be ensured through various rural livelihood programs.
9. Eg: MGNREGA workers can construct or repair the toilets.

Thus synergy between schemes, social engineering, behavioral changes and access to water decides future of sanitation in India.