On Open Defecation, Hygiene and India Shining – Part I
Here is something to jolt you out of your mid-week complacency. In a two-part series on “hygiene & sanitation in India”, I will carry excerpts from various, recent articles on this subject to highlight this commonly seen but rarely discussed challenge.
In Part I, excerpts from Jason Gale’s article that remind us on the need to grapple with some very fundamental problems first before we can aspire to be a “super-power” or say “India Shining” with some conviction.
From India Failing to Control Open Defecation Blunts Nation’s Growth” by Jason Gale, the bits that made me despair…and feel sad, ashamed and angry.
*** Excerpts Begin (emphasis mine)***
Until May 2007, Meera Devi rose before dawn each day and walked a half mile to a vegetable patch outside the village of Kachpura to find a secluded place.
Dodging leering men and stick-wielding farmers and avoiding spots that her neighbors had soiled, the mother of three pulled up her sari and defecated with the Taj Mahal in plain view.
With that act, she added to the estimated 100,000 tons of human excrement that Indians leave each day in fields of potatoes, carrots and spinach, on banks that line rivers used for drinking and bathing and along roads jammed with scooters, trucks and pedestrians. Devi looks back on her routine with pain and embarrassment.
“As a woman, I would have to check where the males were going to the toilet and then go in a different direction,†says Devi, 37, standing outside her one-room mud-brick home. “We used to avoid the daytimes, but if we were really pressured, we would have to go any time of the day, even if it was raining. During the harvest season, people would have sticks in the fields. If somebody had to go, people would beat them up or chase them.â€
.
In the shadow of its new suburbs, torrid growth and 300- Âmillion-plus-strong middle class, India is struggling with a sanitation emergency.
Illness, lost productivity and other consequences of fouled water and inadequate sewage treatment trimmed 1.4-7.2 percent from the gross domestic product of Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam in 2005, according to a study last year by the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program.
Sanitation and hygiene-related issues may have a similar if not greater impact on India’s $1.2 trillion economy, says Guy Hutton, a senior water and sanitation economist with the program in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Snarled transportation and unreliable power further damp the nation’s growth. Companies that locate in India pay hardship wages and ensconce employees in self- sufficient compounds.
…
For girls, the crisis is especially acute: Many drop out of school once they reach puberty because of inadequate lavatories, depriving the country of a generation of possible leaders.
…India’s gated office parks with swimming pools and food courts and enclaves such as the Aralias in Gurgaon, outside New Delhi, which features 6,000-square-foot (557-square-meter) condominiums, mask a breakdown of the most basic and symbolic human need — hygiene.
India has the greatest proportion of people in Asia behind Nepal without access to improved sanitation, according to Unicef. Some 665 million Indians practice open defecation, more than half the global total. In China, the world’s most populous country, 37 million people defecate in the open, according to Unicef.
…Half of India’s schools don’t have separate toilets for males and females, forcing young women to use unisex facilities or nothing at all.
In Devi’s village, sewage and household wastewater flow along open drains that line both sides of narrow alleyways. The fetid water gathers in a shallow channel choking with plastic containers, discarded footwear and household trash.
…A man walks past, clutching a water-filled plastic bottle, presumably on his way to defecate. The rest of the slurry empties into a trench coursing along a feces-dotted path through a field of cauliflowers…What’s not drained from the trench empties into a cesspool on the flood plain of the Yamuna River, which flows through Delhi and then Agra before joining the Ganges at Allahabad, 1,370 kilometers (850 miles) from its pristine source in the Himalayan mountains.
…“If you’ve got feces all around you, it will find its way into your mouth,†Bartram says. “Cholera and typhoid are always dramatic because they come through as outbreaks, and outbreaks catch the news. The real burden is this long, remorseless drain of straightforward, simple diarrheal disease.â€
…Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who led the movement for freedom from foreign domination, grappled with the issue almost a century ago: “The cause of many of our diseases is the condition of our lavatories and our bad habit of disposing of excreta anywhere and everywhere,†Gandhi wrote in 1925. “Sanitation is more important than political independence,†he declared.
…Fewer than 10 percent of Indian cities have a sewage system. About 37 percent of urban wastewater flows into the environment untreated, where such pathogens as rotavirus, campylobacter and human roundworm can spread via water, soil, food and unwashed hands.
…Santha Sheela Nair, India’s secretary of drinking water supply, is assessing another monetary incentive. In a spacious New Delhi office with a white-tiled floor and white walls, Nair thumbs through a leaflet from a desk stacked with foot-high files and books on sanitation. She stops suddenly and points excitedly to a picture of a white toilet adorned with brightly- colored writing.
“This is the first toilet in the world — in the world — where you use the toilet and you get paid,†Nair says.
The public toilet, in the town of Musiri in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, gives users as much as 12 U.S. cents a month for their excreta. Feces are composted and urine, which is 95 percent water and has already passed through the body’s own filter, the kidneys, is collected, stored in drums and used as fertilizer for bananas and other food crops in a two-year research project by the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University.
…Inspired by the successful landing in November of the Moon Impact Probe, India’s first unmanned lunar mission, Nair is looking skyward for ideas.
“In space, you have the most vulnerable situations,†she says, playing a 2-minute YouTube video of an astronaut explaining how to manage bodily functions 100,000 miles from Earth. “They are separating the urine from the feces and drying it,†she says, pointing to her computer monitor. “The urine is processed for re-drinking because they just can’t carry that much water.â€
Nair says modern sewers aren’t the answer for India. The country can’t afford to waste water by flushing it down a latrine. Instead, she’s encouraging airplane-style commodes that are vacuum cleared or toilets that are attached to contained pits rather than systems that pipe the effluent miles away for treatment. In Nair’s world, recycling human excrement for use as fertilizer is preferable.
“We need to invent our own devices which are cost- effective, environmentally sustainable and go with our people,†she says. “We cannot afford the things which are simply things that some civil engineer learned somewhere.â€
...“It’s important for us to do it quickly,†she says. Right now, the number of open defecators is roughly double the number of India’s middle class. “This gap will keep widening,†she says. “That is the challenge for us.â€
For the Devi family, one household in one of India’s thousands of villages, the gap has narrowed. The health and dignity of five people have improved. More of Devi’s neighbors are trying to emulate her example by installing a household latrine and washing their hands with soap.
“We have gone from home to home to talk about sanitation and cleanliness,†Devi says, standing on the bank of the Yamuna River as cattle drink from its fetid waters. “The solution to a thousand household problems is getting a toilet.â€
*** End of Excerpts ***
That last line from the excerpt ought to be repeated…
Part II in a couple of days (here).
Related Post: “A plea for sanitation†– excerpts
Somewhat related posts:
UPA government should appoint Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak to implement the (known) solution to this issue. More than ID cards for citizens, I’d think that sanitation and toilets are a higher priority – or should be.
With the royal family back in the lead, and the oh-so-cute dimpled scion waiting in the wings, these problems will disappear in 15 minutes.
Like they had under ‘chacha’ nehru, and ‘mother’ indira, and the ‘young and dynamic’ rajiv.
It was only that pestilential NDA that reversed all our gains and took us back to the dark ages.
Those damn yindoos..
/end angst
Sir, forget Devi in some remote village. Come to one of the busiest Western Railway and the Metro Railway Delhi (Tis Hazari line) and see for yourself the open defecation.
If we can’t control/ alleviate in the mega metropolis mentioned above, doing it in remote villages is at best a chimera.
thanks for the posts anyway..
Dear shantanu,
There is an organisation called Sulabh which is working only on this. The welink is http://www.sulabhinternational.org
But to my knowledge they are ploughing a lonely furrow. Rotary and other like minded organisations are investing in toilets for girls (especially) in schools because it has been identified as one reason why girls are not able to continue their studies (absence of privacy in schools).
i studied in a city school in the seventies. but even we had only dry toilets. from there india has come a long way. but we have miles to go.
the only solace in all these is that apart from govt a few NGOs are working on this.
regards,
Sridhar
@ kaffir at comment 1.
Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak that kaffir refers to is the man behind sulabh.
rgds/sridhar
After 60 years of Independence, we still need:
– Clean sanitation facilities
– 2 square meals for half the population
– school education for half the population
Sad that our leaders still keep ignoring these fundamental issues.
All: Thanks for the comments…
It is a disgrace..and a reflection of the utter incompetence of our leadership.
Much as I admire Dr Pathak and Sulabh, this should not be the work of a NGO.
This is part of the basic functions of a government. Basic sanitation is not a privilege.
Shantanu,
It is my opinion that such issues persist forever (along with child labor, access to primary education, discrimnation etc) since they do not get as much attention from upwardly mobile, educated, urban population (200-300 million?). Naturally, they do not face these problems themselves personally. Public discourse (if any) or everyday preoccupation is pretty much dominated by this section of the population (cricket, Bollywood, politics, stock market etc).
Quibbling about religion, conversion etc appears so lame (and privileged!!) whenever a bolt of lightening called reality strikes. It is really a disgrace.
People who do not have the sanitation facilities rarely raise their voice in this matter. They have even more pressing needs like food or daily survival.
Thanks for doing your part to raise the awareness of this issue.
> It is my opinion that such issues persist forever (along with child labor, access to primary education, discrimnation etc) since they do not get as much attention from upwardly mobile, educated, urban population (200-300 million?). Naturally, they do not face these problems themselves personally.
This is only a symptom, KK, not the cause.
In fact, the basic argument itself — that its the ‘problem of the 200 million’ does not hold water. For it is this 200 mn that never really votes. Its the roadside defecating 800 million that does.
Despite this, their vote has never really been able to give them anything.
Which brings us to the ROOT CAUSE. The root cause is india has never really had a real democracy.
By that i mean a system whereby institutions, systems and processes are accountable to the people at large.
Instead, what we have is a de facto feudal raj — under the nehru-gandhi-vadra dynasty. This Raj was only briefly interrupted from the 1990s till 2004. We’re back there again. Ergo do not expect this situation to change anytime soon. The roadside defecators will still defecate on the roadside and will still vote, but they will vote for a soporific (free this free that (NREGA), allocation based upon community and so on), because that’s all a feudalist system can offer anyway.
The problem will just not go away.
AG,
So what do you propose to do? What can we do to solve this problem?
If you feel like changing something instead of chewing the issues again and again then please visit http://www.freedomteam.in/ (If you have not)
Jai Hind!
AG,
And to continue what you said, this 200 million (who don’t vote) keep complaining about the feudal raj !!!
May be it is just a symptom and not the cause. I was going for ‘crying baby gets the milk’ line of thinking and was trying to reason out why there is no outrage about such fundamental issues as one would expect.
May be, the problem will get its attention when the 200 million realize it is in their best interest for the whole population to move forward.
I remember watching Dr. JP of Loksatta talking about this. His thesis was that, status quo is unsustainable since you cant have this imbalance with economy racing ahead (??) while corrupt political system (with rampant nepotism and such) still remains rotten. This unsustainable situation is crying for huge reform in the political process, he says.
For the sake of India, I hope Dr. JP is right and political reform becomes inevitable.
AG,
These are the words of Dr. JP (as a reference for my previous comment):
Dr. JayaPrakash Narayan of LokSatta Party in DD News 6
(begins at 3.50 mark). His humility and dedication are quite inspiring.
@ kk: The 200m number is a red-herring (in my view). The 200m may be urban and upwardly-mobile but they are rarely “aware”; More importantly, they are so tied up in the day to day struggle for existence that I think it is very unfair to blame them for our current plight (except perhaps to the extent that they do not vote often enough)
The real blame must be shouldered by the 1m (5m?/10m?) of “elite” – the educated, the ones who have risen beyond the “struggle for existence”, the ones who will never starve, the ones who have the luxury of thought and contemplation…the ones who move around in A/C cars, travel business class, have “retirement savings”, a couple of homes and so on.
This class has psychologically checked out of India…and they dont really care because nearly all their offsrpings (and in many cases they themselves) have a choice of migrating at the drop of a hat – if need be…and many will migrate when/if things reach breaking point. This elite – instead of thinking what can be done – is busy planning and preparing a Plan “B” in case hell breaks loose…What hope do we have in such a scenario?
We need a 100, even 10000 JPs..sadly we do not even have a handful.
***
Do read this post too…Checking out of India – psychologically
Dear Shantanu,
You have hit the nail on the head 100%. Its the affluent, well to do, educated elite who, if willing, can make a reall difference to India.
Some years back we had a relative come over to the wedding reception. She must be somewhere between 50-60 yrs of age, pretty well settled in UK with family. She said to both of us, you guys should really leave India and go out. Your talent will be wasted in India and you dont deserve it. In the confusion of the wedding reception it did not hit me but some days later when I brooded over it, I was pretty disappointed needless to say. So this is the attitude!!
The remaining of the 200m odd middle class, higher middle class who live in India still live in fear of job-losses, future security for family, etc because there is no guarantee in today’s world. Apart from casting their vote, they cannot really join active politics, NGOs, social activists organisations,etc because these ‘side’ tasks to be done meaningfully, demand time, effort, dedication and perseverence of which there is a big dearth in their lives. With the schooling, college expenses of their childern and with medical/healthcare costs for parents rocketing upwards they have no option but to really bring this dont care attitude and surge ahead with daily chores. All this, even if they are ‘aware’ of problems India faces. With thousands breathing down the neck for the same job, this middle class man cannot afford to let go, atleast until his son/daughter gets a job. But by then he is mentally, physically exhausted to do anyting meaningful.
But what a shame really, as your comments #7 states, all this should really be the daily work of Govt agencies for which govt employees are actually paid for. There should be lesser hurdles in the daily life of common man in India so that he can go about his job in an efficient, professional way without really worrying about all these issues.
If only we Indians have an attitude to work. To work honestly and sincerely in whatever job we are in. Thats all it takes to begin with. All the above problems will slowly but surely trickle away…
Shantanu,
The 200m may be urban and upwardly-mobile but they are rarely “awareâ€;
That is why posts like this deserve more focus and attention than any other topic.
We need a 100, even 10000 JPs..sadly we do not even have a handful.
Agreed.
The real blame must be shouldered by the 1m (5m?/10m?) of “elite†– the educated, the ones who have risen beyond the “struggle for existenceâ€,
Real question is: Whether it is 10m or 100m, *why* should these people feel obliged? What compulsion exists for them to do so? Nothing, in my opinion.
Do read this post too…Checking out of India – psychologically
Thanks for this link. Like it is concluded on that post, the only choice is to continue to act and do our part when/if time/energy permits.
My honest suggestion is to focus more on basic issues like this in your posts than spending energy on provocative topics.
@ kk: “My honest suggestion is to focus more on basic issues like this in your posts than spending energy on provocative topics“.
Basic issues are rarely controversial..so they don’t generate much debate.
Many of the “provocative topics” though have very real and serious implications on policy, national identity, territorial integrity, social unrest and “communal” violence…Some of these topics address existential threats to India too.
It is tempting to avoid them…and pretend that everything is fine. In reality, things are not fine.
I strive for a reasonable balance but in the end this is a personal blog, so it reflects what is on my mind…which may not be identical to what gets reported in the newspapers – but that is what makes it interesting, I think – don’t you agree?
dear shantanu,
please find below a question raised by shri navin jindal in the lok sabha and the reply. (the annexure is not accesible).
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
MINISTRY OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT
LOK SABHA
UNSTARRED QUESTION NO 3207
ANSWERED ON 12.05.2006
CONSTRUCTION OF TOILETS IN IAY HOUSES
3207 . Shri NAVEEN JINDAL
Will the Minister of RURAL DEVELOPMENT be pleased to state:-
(a) the targets fixed for making toilets in Indira Awas Yojana houses during 2005-06, State-wise;
(b) whether the target has since been achieved;
(c) if not, the shortfall thereof and the reasons therefor;
(d) the amount being given by the Government for making toilets;
(e) whether any suggestions have been received for enhancement of funds since this amount is inadequate particularly in rocky and sandy areas; and
(f) if so, the reasons thereto?
ANSWER
MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT (SHRIMATI SURYAKANTA PATIL)
(a) to (f) The Ministry of Rural Development is providing financial assistance to the shelterless rural Below Poverty Line (BPL) households for construction of a house @ Rs.25,000/ per unit in the plain areas and Rs.27,500/ in hilly/difficult areas under Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY). As per the Guidelines of IAY, Sanitary Latrine is an integral part of an IAY house and no separate amount is given for this purpose. However, in case, a beneficiary fails to construct a sanitary latrine, an amount of Rs.600/ is deducted from the total financial assistance to be given to such beneficiary. During the year 2005-06, total physical target for construction of houses was 14.41 lakh. However, against 13.47 lakh houses constructed under IAY as per the reports received from the State Governments so far, only 6.96 lakh Sanitary Latrines have been constructed. Due to attitudinal approach, scarcity of water or due to other reasons, some beneficiaries do not want to construct sanitary latrines within their houses. A Statement showing State-wise number of houses targeted, constructed and number of houses provided with Sanitary Latrines under IAY during 2005-06 is annexed.
IAY guidelines, inter alia, provide that wherever possible, efforts should be made to dovetail funds from Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) for providing sanitary latrine so that more money could be made available for construction of the IAY house.
The annexure is accessible at:
http://164.100.47.132/annexture/lsq14/7/au3207.htm
Shantanu,
I strive for a reasonable balance but in the end this is a personal blog, so it reflects what is on my mind…which may not be identical to what gets reported in the newspapers – but that is what makes it interesting, I think – don’t you agree?
Sure, it is interesting. It’s your blog. And as you said it reflects what’s on your mind!
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
MINISTRY OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT
LOK SABHA
STARRED QUESTION NO 207
ANSWERED ON 12.12.2008
TOTAL CLEAN VILLAGES DISTRICTS UNDER TSC
207 . Shri K. JAYASURYA PRAKASH REDDY
JHANSI BOTCHA LAKSHMI
Will the Minister of RURAL DEVELOPMENT be pleased to state:-
(a) whether the Government has declared many villages/districts in the country as total clean villages/districts under Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC);
(b) if so,the details thereof,State-wise;
(c) whether any assessment has been made by the Government about the level of performance of the Scheme so far;and
(d) if so,the details thereof?
ANSWER
MINISTER OF THE STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT (Dr.RAGHUVANSH PRASAD SINGH)
(a) to (d) A statement is laid on the Table of the House.
Statement referred to in the reply to parts (a) to (d) of the Lok Sabha Starred Question No. 207 admitted for reply on 12.12.2008
(a) & (b) Yes,Sir.To add vigour to the sanitation campaign, an incentive for fully sanitized and open defecation free Gram Panchayats,Blocks, and Districts called the `Nirmal Gram Puraskar`(NGP) has been approved as a component of Total Sanitation Campaign. Gram Panchayats,Intermediate (Block) Panchayats and District Panchayats,which have achieved 100% sanitation coverage are considered for the incentive,if the following conditions are fulfilled:
# All households in the Panchayati Raj Institution (PRI) area must have access to individual toilets or to community complexes.
# All schools and Anganwadis must have toilets.All co-educational schools above primary level must have separate urinals and toilet blocks for boys and girls.
# Complete elimination of open defecation within the boundaries of the PRI.Nobody,including floating population, defecates in the open and child faeces are disposed of in toilets.
# All water sources to have proper platforms and drainages around them.
# Proper mechanism for Solid and Liquid Waste Management (SLWM).No garbage dumping and water logging within the boundaries of the PRI.
The award money is given to the PRIs,based on a population criterion, which is as follows:
Particulars Gram Panchayat Intermediate District Panchayat
Panchayat
Population as Less 1000 2000 5000 10,000 Upto 50001 Upto More
per Census than to to to and 50000 and 10,00,000 than
2001 1000 1999 4999 9999 above above 10,00,000
Award 0.50 1.00 2.00 4.00 5.00 10.00 20.00 30.00 50.00
Money
(Rs.in Lakh)
The Nirmal Gram Puraskar has received tremendous response in the field. First NGP award was distributed in 2004-05, in which 38 Gram Panchayats and 2 Intermediate Panchayat were found eligible and were awarded the NGP. In 2005-06, this number increased to 760 Gram Panchayats and 9 Intermediate Panchayats. In 2006-07, 4,945 Gram panchayats and 14 Intermediate Panchayats were given the Nirmal Gram Puraskar. In 2007-08, 12,075 Gram Panchayats and 105 Intermediate Panchayats have been given the Nirmal Gram Puraskar. The State-wise details are annexed.
(c) & (d) Mid term review of Total Sanitation Campaign was conducted by Agriculture Finance Corporation in 2004.Among other things, it pointed out that adoption of toilets was only 61.5% and it was felt that there was need to revise the unit cost and some other parameters of the programme.It also mentioned that there was need to improve IEC activities including mass media campaign.It was felt that there was need to encourage those involved in the programme at the grass root level and efforts should be made to increase their capacity to deliver.It also recommended provisions of super structure for individual households and extending financial incentives therefore.
Based upon the recommendations, the unit cost of Individual Household Latrine (IHHL) was revised upwards and is presently at Rs. 2500 per unit and Rs. 3000 for difficult and hilly areas.A new component of Solid & Liquid Waste Management was introduced as part of TSC and a concept of revolving fund was introduced to encourage APL families to build toilets.
A study was commissioned through UNICEF in 2008, to assess whether the spirit, principles and quality of the NGP are maintained during the scale up of the TSC. The main objectives of the impact assessment study includes whether the principles of NGP have been sustained in existing awarded PRIs including the open defecation free environment and whether the process was socially inclusive and how the NGP award has influenced other sanitation related activities and overall social development in the awardee PRIs.The study was carried out in 162 NGP awarded Gram Panchayats across six study States i.e.Andhra Pradesh,Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.These included 37 NGP awarded GPs from 2004-05 and 125 NGP awarded GPs from 2005-06 selected on a random basis.
This Report shows that 85 percent households have access to individual,community or shared toilets.The main reasons for non use of toilets includes unfinished installations and lack of a super structure.It also shows that with introduction of NGP,there has been a good achievement in most states with respect to Total Sanitation Campaign which leads to almost 70 percent people using toilets. A majority of schools (96 percent) have toilets and 89 percent have urinals,with separate urinals for girls and boys in 84 percent of schools. The emphasis on solid and liquid waste disposal were lacking in more than half the GPs and households visited and this requires further improvements through creating adequate infrastructure such as drains and waste bins,and creating awareness through social mobilisation. The analysis of primary data suggests that there is a positive linkage between social mobilisation and performance of various sanitation indicators.The NGP award has helped in scaling up the TSC to a great extent and helped in improving sanitation practices.There is, however a need for better monitoring and verification process.
Based on this report,all six States have been asked to take corrective action to ensure sustainability of NGP status in the awarded villages.Also, the verification process for NGP has been strengthened to include a sample re-verification process by members of earlier awarded NGP villages.The award money is also now released in installments,after ascertaining the sustainability of the nirmal status.As part of the ongoing process of monitoring and evaluation of schemes,a further evaluation of NGP has been initiated.
for annexure go to http://164.100.47.132/annexture/lsq14/14/as207.htm
Not very inspiring but all the same…
Health minister’s constituency faring worst in providing toilets (Nov 19 is World Toilet Day)
Courtesy Anubhava (a fellow FTI member), this news-report, A bag that could solve India’s toilet woes:
It is a daily struggle for millions of slum dwellers in the country to get access to a toilet, a perennial problem that authorities have so far been unable to solve.
But, now a Swedish firm has come out with a solution — Peepoo, a biodegradable toilet bag that can be used as fertiliser.
The toilet bag, which has recently undergone field trials in India, Bangladesh and Kenya, is expected to help mitigate the dreadful situation for millions, especially the women in the slum areas, says its developer Anders Wilhelmson, an architect and professor in Stockholm.
…The Peepoo is clean from the beginning and doesn’t smell after use and very importantly, it makes collection of waste very easy,” Camila Wirseen said.
“It works like micro treatment plant and cuts the contamination. This will save lives.”
…Megh Pyne Abhiyan, an NGO, has carried out the trial in three flood-hit districts of Bihar –Supaul, Khagaria, Saharsa– last year.
Describing Peepoo’s other features, the officials said the bioplastic bag can be used as fertiliser, which is an expensive and scarce commodity in countries like India.
Once used, the 14×38 cm slim elongated bag can be knotted and buried under the earth. With a layer of urea crystals, the waste can turn into fertiliser, killing off disease-producing pathogens found in feces.
“Not only is it sanitary, they can reuse this to grow crops,” Wilhelmson said.
“You can use it directly in a small container or Garden-in-a-Sack. It can also be processed and mixed with topsoil and loam (clay+sand) creating a soil filled with nutrients.”
About the cost of the bag, the officials said, it will be comparable to the price of polythenes used to collect garbage.
Shameful, depressing: 36% schools in Maharashtra have no toilet for girls by Kiran Tare / DNA
These are *official* stats…The reality may be much worse.
Depressing read with a silver lining at the end: India Matters: Toilet Stories From the Capital
All India by Sutapa Deb, November 08, 2014.
Brief excerpt:
…
This is Shalu’s life as she knows it. The 21 year old is a student of BA second year at Delhi University’s School of Open Learning. Home is a 6 feet by 10 feet room at block 18 in Kalyanpuri, one of the oldest jhuggi jhopdi clusters in East Delhi.
It is a space shared by five adults: her parents who work as tailors and her two brothers. There is a bed and a cooking area but it is too small to build the toilet that the family needs. They use a corner to bathe and urinate. A hole in the wall is an outlet to the open drain outside.
…
…Babita, Shalu’s neighbour, recalls how difficult it was to walk to the toilet when she was pregnant. “My hands and feet were swollen. Sometimes I would feel giddy. So I would take a break and sit down somewhere.”
…
The toilet complex at Khichripur compounds their indignity. Dirty and poorly maintained, it fails to meet appropriate standards. There are no dust bins, no system to flush. Nearly 10 of the 40 toilets seats are clogged but they are neither clean nor kept locked to users, aggravating the unsanitary conditions. With the toilet complex closed between 10 pm and 5 am, many users continue to resort to open defecation in the forested area nearby.
…
At another toilet complex in Kalyanpuri, sanitation workers give us a glimpse of the operating and maintenance problems.
…
His colleague Bansi requests us to appoint a guard at the toilet. “I face a lot of problems. I clean one place and the women make a mess somewhere else. They defecate anywhere. I don’t have any equipment to clean the place. I throw mud and scoop it on a plate. Even the pipe has not been spared. It has been broken at multiple points and I get wet. There’s no brush, no broom to clean the mess. Should I use my hands?”
Pl continue commenting on this post over at the link for Part 2.
Thanks