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The
day everyone in India
gets a toilet to use, I shall know
that our country has reached the pinnacle of progress.
Jawaharlal Nehru
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Sanitation
in India is poorly funded, poorly resolved and poorly discussed |
Taking on a very tough job in the
Indian subcontinent is an organization that calls itself what may be literally
translated to ‘easy’ (sulabh in Hindi).
Sanitation in India
, as in most developing countries, is
an issue that is impoverished on all counts: it is poorly funded, poorly
resolved and poorly discussed. The lack of access to toilets is not only a
problem of keeping clean, it is also the leading cause of death in the
Third World
: the most widespread diseases in
developing countries are transmitted by human faeces (unlike the West, where
cancer claims the highest number of lives).
In
India , as many as 50 diseases are caused by
lack of proper sanitation, affecting over 80% of the population.
These include intestinal/parasitic/infectious diarrhoea, typhoid and
cholera. And yet, while the USA, Canada, Australia and almost the whole of
Europe, Japan, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan have 100% sanitation
facilities, the 1999 Status Report for South-East Asia says that 733 million
Indians (590 million in the rural areas and 143 million in the urban areas) do
not have access to basic sanitation. In other words, 80% of rural
India and 50% of urban
India does not have toilets for its
citizens.
Following in
Gandhi’s Footsteps
The
Sulabh Movement was born in
Patna
,
Bihar
, out of concern for sanitation,
ecology and scavengers. Since then,
Sulabh has provided two-pit pour flush, water seal toilet systems to more than
six million households and 5,500 community centers. Over 10 million people in
India
use a Sulabh toilet every day.
Founder
and Padma Bhushan (a very high civilian honor) awardee, Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak
recalls, “I come from an orthodox Brahmin family of
Bihar
. I became involved in a group called
the Gandhi Centenary Committee in 1969, then celebrating the Mahatma’s 100th
birthday. They told me to take up
his vision of restoring human rights and dignity to scavengers. I told them I
was a sociologist by background, not an engineer.
Besides, I told them, I have an attitudinal problem towards working in
this field (of sanitation). What can I do?”
Human
scavenging is the reprehensible practice of manually carrying ‘night-soil’
(faecal matter accumulated in dry latrines), on the head, to dispose of it some
distance away. Mahatma Gandhi wished
to liberate the scavengers in India and insisted that all visitors to his
Sabarmati Ashram clear their own refuse. This was a rule followed by, among
others, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, later Prime Minister of India. Nevertheless, in
spite of framing legislation banning human scavenging in 1993, the practice
still continues in several parts of India. Says Pathak, “After my initial
protest, I finally went and lived with a colony of scavengers for three months.
They are ostracized by an entrenched caste system, and not acknowledged by the
very people whose dirty work they do. I talked to them, I ate the food they
prepared. I had to understand and experience their life first.”
Deeply
moved by their plight and relying on a book that threw light on a rural model
for toilets, Pathak improvised and finally came upon a system that was feasible.
His philosophy: vision, mission, commitment, capabilities and efficiency.
Says Pathak, “All these five things are required to make a thing
successful. Unless I gave them (the people) an alternative, what could they do?
I could ask them not to defecate!”
Simple, Efficient and
Productive!
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The
twin pit pour flush toilet |
The
Sulabh system of Twin
Pit Pour Flush (TPPF) toilets uses about two liters of water per
flush as opposed to the 14 liters required by a regular toilet. It alternately
deposits waste into two pits. The first pit can be used by a family of five for
up to four years. When the first pit is full, the family can switch to the
second pit, which also can be used for about four years. Over that period, the
waste in the first pit is gradually and naturally converted into a rich material
that can be removed and used as dry, powdery fertilizer.
Each pit is about one and a half meters deep and lined with a lattice of bricks.
The gas formed by the decomposing waste is absorbed into the surrounding soil,
eliminating any foul smell. Experiments conducted in India have established that bacteria from the pits travel no more than three meters
vertically, and extend less than one meter downward. The design of the system
and the pits can be modified as needed to protect water sources and underground
soil.
A Sulabh system can be built for as little as Rs.500/- a little more than $10,
which makes it an affordable option even in the poorer regions of India. In urban areas that have costly sewer systems, Sulabh systems have been
adopted as community toilets, often with an innovative modification: the
attachment of a biogas plant. Through these plants, human waste produces
nutrient-rich water that can be used for irrigation, and biogas that, when mixed
with diesel fuel, can power electrical devices like streetlights. Biogas Sulabh
systems have come to be popular in hospitals, schools and hotels.
Sulabh community toilets are almost ubiquitous in most localities of Indian
cities now. ‘Customers’ are required to pay 50 paise/half a rupee ($1 =
Rupees 46) per use. A family of five can purchase a monthly card for Rs.20/-.
Women and children are not charged anything.
Slum dwellers find other wonderful benefits at the Sulabh Shauchalaya
(toilet)s - a continuous supply of running water that they utilize for having a
bath, changing and washing clothes in the adjoining bath complexes.
Efforts are on to set up
primary health centers near the toilet complexes. They already exist at some
locations. The toilets are kept clean on a continuous basis and many
underprivileged people have found both comfort and convenience close to where
they live. Complexes have also been constructed near busy railway stations, bus
terminals, government offices and public hospitals.
Sixty percent of the money
generated from the operation of "pay and use" community toilets in
urban areas is given to former scavenger families or is used to pay for
vocational training that helps them to reintegrate into society. The
technology is well established and has been successfully functioning in a
financially viable way for the last 25 years.
Dr.
Pathak adds, “It is, however, now necessary to
replicate it on a mass scale. We should have easily accessible public “pay
and use” toilets with biogas plants at the neighborhood level all over the
country, and the TPPF latrines at the household level. Though the challenge to
provide toilet facilities has been totally overcome in rich countries, it has
still to be met in developing countries like India
. I have learned
over my 25 years of experience, that only cooperation between the government
authorities and Non Government Organizations (NGOs) can make sanitation
programmes a success. Our greatest challenge is to ensure the participation of
the community in keeping a facility in good condition. Working in isolation is
not the correct way.”
International
Recognition
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The
world’s largest Sulabh complex is in Nasik |
The United
Nations Centre for Human Settlements recognised Sulabh's cost-effective
sanitation system as a global 'Urban Best Practice' at the Habitat-II conference
held in Istanbul,
Turkey, in June 1996. The Economic and Social Council of
the United Nations has granted the Special
Consultative Status to Sulabh in recognition of its ‘outstanding service to
mankind’.
To
Sulabh’s credit is also the largest toilet complex in the world. At Shirdi in
the Nasik District of Maharashtra State, near the shrine dedicated to the
popular saint Sai Baba, is a facility with 148 toilets and 108 bathrooms that
allow space for dressing, babysitting and breast-feeding. 5,000 lockers take
care of the belongings of the continuous stream of pilgrims. The complex is lit
by the electricity made available through biogas generation from human excreta.
Up
to 50,000 visitors use
these facilities every day.
Says
Pathak, “When I first started,
people laughed at me and said, who will pay to use a toilet?
In 1973, the Ara municipality in Bihar came to my rescue and agreed to
use the Sulabh model. There were times when I had to sell my wife’s ornaments
and I once sold a piece of my ancestral land. I borrowed money from my friends
and contemplated suicide when I realized I could not return it (then). Today,
the Sulabh technology is available free of cost to anyone who wants it - be it
an organization or an individual or the government.
I have not accepted a single paisa by way of grants or aid from anybody - not
the government, not foreign organizations. In our system there is no burden on
the exchequer or on the local authorities. Now, we are there to help in every
way.”
The combined
Sulabh action plan on human waste disposal and social reforms has provided jobs
to 50,000 people, created 10,000,000 (1 crore) mandays and turned 240 towns
scavenging-free. One
such complex is in Bhutan, another is coming up in Afghanistan. The Bombay Port Trust and the
Paradip Port
(Orissa) have asked Sulabh to construct and maintain toilet
blocks in the dock area. Most of the public toilets are being given to Sulabh to
construct and maintain for a 30-year base period at no charge to the State.
Sulabh is operating and maintaining more than 5500 community complexes in 1100
towns in 26 states and 3 Union Territories
of India.
Lalitha Sridhar
is
a Chennai-based freelance journalist keenly interested in development
issues. Your emails will be
forwarded to her by contacting the editor at: ScienceTech@islam-online.net.
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