Towards Cleaner India: Providing clean drinking water and proper sanitation facility to

all.

Towards cleaner India: Providing clean drinking water and proper sanitation facility to all

India is the 2nd largest country in the world in terms of population with 1.2 billion + people. But about 65 million living in 35 major cities of India don’t have access to safe drinking water. While 665 million people in India defecate in open. These problems demand some serious steps to be taken in order to improve the situation.

Points at issue : Issues addressed

1.Lack of safe drinking water in india 1.People’s Mind Set: To raise awareness of sustainable development and to promote its visibility and credibility within a community or society. The ultimate goal is to achieve such a degree of understanding and motivation that the members of the community can participate in the decision making at a more informed level and that they participate in the realisation of the decisions made.

2. Inadequate water supply is major areas. 20 of the top 40 cities get water for only 4.3 hours of water supply in a day.

3. People’s mind set is one of the main reason for defecation in open in the rural area is lack of awareness among the people.

4. Inadequate sanitation to majority of the population, particularly in rural India.

2. Inadequate Sanitation Facilities In Rural India: Inadequate sanitation facilities in rural India costs the nation about Rs 2.4 trillion. These include lack of infrastructure to manage human excreta, solid waste and drainage..

5. 88% of deaths occurring due to diarrhoea occur due to unsafe drinking water and improper sanitation.

Overview of the proposed solutionThe proposed solution has two major phases.First phase deals with creation of awareness to the people in rural areas

by conducting effective workshops by NGOs in the villages which realise the importance of the proper sanitation. And the second phase deals with the construction and maintenance of toilets by Private organisation under the contract by Government.

Phase-I Effective Workshops by NGOs

Any solution proposed to be implemented will go down the drain, if peoples’ mindset remains stagnant. There has to be awareness amidst people and they must learn the importance of practicing proper sanitation and staying hygienic. If this aspect is ignored then the result will not be satisfactory. Hence, this problem needs an immediate and efficient solution.

We work for an organization called R.I.S.E (Revolutionizing India through Social Empowerment), works for the welfare of the society and addresses issues such as these, recently a ‘Save Kengeri Lake’ campaign was conducted by R.I.S.E in bangalore. There are innumerable organizations that work for similar causes. We propose the collaboration of such organizations and conduct workshops on sanitation in the rural areas.

When educating the rural people, utmost care has to be taken especially regarding sanitation. Hence the workshop curriculum must be planned with a lot of thought process. Questions that will be answered are:-➔ What is proper sanitation?➔ Why should they practice proper sanitation?➔ Ill-effects of not practising proper sanitation.➔ Citation of examples where people have suffered due to lack of proper sanitation.➔ Distribution of certain required sanitary items.

Every workshop must have a quality that attracts the villagers to attend it, distribution of sanitary items such as sanitary napkins, soaps etc would be appropriate.

Workshop Curriculum

Status of Rural Sanitation: RURAL SANITATION COVERAGE IN INDIA

Number of organizations working for every district (Ex.Hyderabad)

Number of villages covered under workshop per month in a district

Number of districts in India

Number of villages in India

No.of villages covered under workshop in a year

Example of the process of conducting Workshops by NGOs

minimum number = 20

20 villages

675 districts

1,62.000 villages

5,93,615 villages

This data is just an example. Since the number of organisations working for the present cause are a lot higher than in the given example a lot more villages can be covered per year. There by spreading awareness in most of the villages in a short time.

India probably has the largest number of NGOs in the world. The first estimate in 2008 declared that there was one NGO for every 400 people, which is almost a 3.3 million.

Phase II- Construction and Maintenance of Sanitation facilities by Private Organisations

Construction and maintenance of toilets:- Most of the rural areas lack basic infrastructure for proper defecation due to which there are severe effects on the health of the people. the following are the features of our solution: 1.) The government gives a contract to Private Organisations to build the toilets. The funds are allotted by the government. 2.) For each district one builder is allotted the assignment of construction of public toilets in those areas. 3.) A separate organisations set up which consists of two types of workers, The first are the the ones who are responsible for the maintenance of the public toilets, The second are the areas incharge who are responsible for ensuring that no open- defecation takes place in their area.4.) A new resolution is passed after the construction phase of the public toilets which allows the area incharge to penalize anyone who defecates/urinates in open, in that area.5.) For the maintenance of these public toilets people are hired from the same village and are given fixed monthly salary by the gram panchayat.

Budget for the proposed solution

Total Sanitation Campaign(Existing)

Amount allotted ResultTotal Annual

budget in crores

1.)Rs 4600. approx. per

house

1.) Rs. 1650 in 2011-12.2.)Rs.1485 in 2010-11.3.)Rs.19,626 in last 10 years by Central Government[1,2].

Not so successful due to improper practice, maintenance and misuse of allotted money.

Newly Proposed Solution

Cost to construct a toilet

Average no.of toilets per village [3]

Total estimated budget in crores

1.)Rs. 3500 including materials.2.)Rs.2200 for CEB toilets (Compressed Earth Brick)[4].

Rs.36,921.88by both Central and State governments for CEB technology[4]. The amount represented is to construct toilets for all households in rural areas.

283 houses approx.

➢ Generates Employment:-● The proposed solution generates employment for the people.● People in the rural areas get many opportunities as they can work in their villages

and there is a chance that people will not migrate to cities in search of employment.

➢ Stringent rules:-● Since the proposed solution mainly involves private organisations to construct and

maintain sanitation facilities, they make stringent rules to avoid open defecation .● The sanitation facilities provided by them assures cleanliness.

➢ Involvement of Private Organization:-● It is better to have private organisations working for this cause compared to

government as the work done by govt is not effective and hasn't caused much changes though it organised many schemes for this cause.

● We also have seen many municipal corporations fail in providing benefits for people in this cause and hope the solution proposed by us would be effective and helpful for improving sanitation in rural india.

Merits of the proposed solution

Criteria to measure Impact :-Survey:-A survey will be conducted by NGOs after the implementation of toilets. A report will be submitted to the government about 1.) Facilities and maintenance.2.)Usage number.3.)Benefits occurred.

Sustainability:- This solution will be sustained under the following circumstances 1.)Financial:-

Government funds for maintenance of toilets.2.) Proper Practice:-

Even though proper facilities are given to people, if they do open defecation then they will be fined under improper sanitation by Monitoring Force. This bewares them to avoid open defecation. These fines were again used for maintenance.

Scalability of the solution:-The scale of extent of solution can be given by 1.)A statistical data about i.)Diseases affected due to improper sanitation.(From the report by NGOs) ii.)No.of fines imposed for improper practice of sanitation

Impact of the

solution

CHALLENGES FACED DURING IMPLEMENTATION

➢ Funds:● Raising funds for a better sanitation is one of the primary challenge.● Government has to allot funds to Private Contract members in order to construct

and maintain toilets.

➢ Dedicated Staff: ● It is little hard to hire dedicated staff who can create effective awareness to the

people in the villages.● Number of NGOs participation may vary from region to region.

➢ Corruption:● Since government is the source for financial aid, some of the allotted funds may

be consumed or wasted during transferring process.

➢ Time constraint:● It might take a bit long to get implemented due to approval of bills and

transferring funds.

References1.) http://www.indiaspend.com/investigations/govt-gives-money-for-toilets-they-build-kitchens2.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_earth_block :-3.) http://censusindia.gov.in/Census_And_You/area_and_population.aspx :-4.) http://www.unicef.org/india/reallives_3814.htm :-