The first priority in Swachh Bharat must be to free dry-latrine cleaners, who, for many years, have been waiting for their liberty, says Bezwada Wilson, 53, national convenor of Safai Karmachari Andolan and 2016 Magsaysay Award winner.

The son of a manual scavenger–the term used to describe about 180,000 Indians (as per Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 data), almost all Dalit, who clean excreta from dry toilets by hand–Wilson and his SKA aim to eradicate a practice that was banned by law 26 years ago but continues in practice. Without mechanisation and localised solutions for sewage treatment and modern sewer systems, Swachh Bharat is “an illusion,” Wilson told IndiaSpend in the course of an interview. Those who clean sewers, he said, have never been counted: 817 of them died over 26 years to 2019.

On October 2, 2019, Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi said that “rural India and its villages have declared themselves ‘open defecation-free'(ODF).” This comes five years after the launch of the Swachh Bharat Mission (clean India mission or SBM). Although 110 million toilets have been built, the claim that India is free of open defecation is not true, FactChecker.in reported on the same day as the PM’s announcement.

Wilson’s father and elder brother were manual scavengers in Kolar Gold Fields in Karnataka, a couple of hours’ drive east of Bengaluru. Swachh Bharat must start by rehabilitating manual scavengers–160,000 of whom are women–and not just constructing new toilets, he said.

In 2016, he was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay award for “leading a grassroots movement to eradicate the degrading servitude of manual scavenging in India, reclaiming for the dalits the human dignity that is their natural birthright”.

Wilson explained why manual scavengers must be compensated and rehabilitated, how the SBM must look outside just building toilets and how technology can end manual scavenging. Edited excerpts:

With the Gates Foundation presenting its Goalkeepers Global Goals Award to PM Narendra Modi for improved toilet access through the SBM, to what extent do you think has SBM managed that since its launch in October 2014? How do you assess the programme?

I do not have a comment about the award to the Prime Minister by the foundation. But a new ideology is being promoted where open defecation is being looked at as a crime. I agree that open defecation is not good for various reasons, and that is the view held globally. But if you consider that 1.8 million are homeless in India according to 2011 census, and that there are still hunger deaths [India is ranked 103 in the 2018 Global Hunger Index], such a country cannot make such a declaration just for the sake of achieving Sustainable Development Goals or for [meeting targets of] any other agency. You want to declare ODF and at the same time kill citizens. This cannot be accepted. 

We must condemn this [death of two Dalit children in Madhya Pradesh]. We are a democratic country and must follow certain norms and procedures to implement any scheme.

Parameswaran Iyer, secretary, department of drinking water and sanitation, told us in a 2018 interview that “the central government promotes technology that completely removes the direct engagement of a human being with human waste. The compost created by the twin-pit technology [encouraged in Swachh Bharat] is 100% safe and the pits may be emptied by anyone and everyone”. Do you agree, and does the programme work towards ending manual scavenging?

He is also aware that about 85% are not twin-pit [type of pit latrine recommended under SBM]. Even if it is a twin pit, in Indian climatic conditions, it is not going to work perfectly. And when Parameswaran Iyer entered a [twin-pit] and brought out faecal matter [in Daund, Maharashtra on May 17, 2018], it was 100% drama and he also knows it. If he wants to enter the septic tank or sewage, ask him to enter one in Delhi. The conditions are so bad that human beings cannot enter and come back.

You cannot create a laboratory and show that it is a model for the whole country. Laboratories and demonstrations are different while cleaning [pits] physically in a large country like ours is difficult work.

So, just because you [government] agreed to complete a project and to achieve that you cannot change the pattern of implementing schemes, you use whistles to prevent people from defecating in the open, or [threaten to] put people behind bars. Now we [society] have reached a stage where we are killing people. This cannot be accepted. This is problematic in any democratic society. If people are defecating outside, there seems to be a necessity. To prevent it we have to provide sanitation facilities. It may take some time, but you cannot do it in a hurry.

Although Swachh Bharat looks at construction of toilets, one of the challenges would be the cleaning of pits. Does it continue to put the burden of cleaning toilets on Dalit communities?

There is no need to say it. In India, where (the) caste system exists, caste is linked with sanitation. Everyone knows the community that will clean a septic tank or sewage. Without mechanisation for emptying pits the government is going ahead with constructing new toilets at such a pace. It is not just a burden, it will lead to more deaths in the next two or three years. It seems that we have invested our money to kill Dalits. The government must look into the issue.

The Supreme Court took a serious view recently on manual scavenging deaths, observing on September 18, 2019 that “in no country, people are sent to gas chambers to die”. The government has identified 54,130 manual scavengers in India. Your comments?

Through the survey the government has identified dry-latrine cleaners. Septic tank and sewage cleaners have never been enumerated in the country. That is yet to be done.

We have been saying for a long time what the Supreme Court has just stated. The court could have said that since the 2013 Act [Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013], the government has not done anything, and then [proceeded] to place a deadline. It could have asked the government that from tomorrow you cannot allow any human being to enter into a sewer line or septic tank. If the court places such a deadline the government will rush to achieve it. Instead the court has given a passing remark.

We do not require the Supreme Court’s sympathy, but we need a hard decision to protect life, dignity and self-respect of citizens.

There is a two-fold increase in the number of manual scavengers identified in the survey under Manual Scavenging Act 2013 and the 2018 national survey. Why do we have such disparity in documentation? What are the challenges?

In 2017 we approached the NITI Aayog stating that scavenging still continues in 100 districts. It suggested that we do the survey for the entire country. But Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment said that they would like to do the survey on their own, and not through NITI Aayog. We worked with the ministry’s National Safai Karamcharis Finance & Development Corporation (NSKFDC) to identify [workers]. We gave the data and they agreed to the data shared. But many states have contradicted [the data].

This [survey] is not for the whole country but for selected districts. The rest of the districts also need to be enumerated to arrive at a final figure. We are claiming that 160,000 women carry human excreta in India. You must start Swachh Bharat from there; instead the focus is on creating new toilets. The first priority in Swachh Bharat must go to dry latrine cleaners who have been waiting for their liberty for many years. This has not happened.

The documentation is supposed to be done by the government, and a district magistrate must have a reason to suspect there is manual scavenging. The reason [for survey] is offered when we provide data on such toilets. Then the magistrate must undertake a district survey and declare the numbers identified. If names are missing, a self-declaration can be accepted. But this process has never happened in a systematic manner.

There have been 419 deaths of sanitation workers and only two arrests, according to The Wire’s database. Why is there a problem in charging the administration or those employing workers without following proper guidelines for their protection, under the appropriate legal provisions?

The government has to respond to the reasons for no arrest. In majority of the cases, the government is not taking responsibility. They say that they are not employing the workers directly. The Act says that [employing workers for] clearing, carrying, disposing human excreta in any manner by a contractor or anyone is a punishable crime. 

So if it is punishable, the government should have filed a case immediately. When we put pressure, they file a case for a few incidents. But after a few days they release them. An FIR may get filed, but no chargesheet is filed. The government must respond to these issues. The reason is that there is no political will.

Safai Karmachari Andolan data say that there are 37,167 railway cleaners. We had reported that sanitation experts and various studies–including those commissioned by the railways–have pointed out that most of the new “bio-toilets” on Indian trains are ineffective and the water discharged is no better than raw sewage. Has the installation of bio-toilets made a difference considering the railways is the largest employer of manual scavengers?

The government has no clear understanding about the problems we are talking about. They want to avoid court or police cases, or they say that they are implementing the Act. But if they want to do that in its true spirit, human beings must not be cleaning excreta. In this regard the government is not moving even a single step.

The railways filed a false affidavit in the Supreme Court saying that it was not employing a single person [as a manual scavenger]. The case is still pending in the Delhi High Court. They say that they are converting 500 toilets [a year in coaches] to bio-toilets. This will take a long time given the number of coaches in the railways.

The railways has already wasted money on cemented aprons (built on platform lines to clean garbage and toilet waste), and then tried to implement a control discharge toilet system (to eliminate spillage of toilet waste), which has also failed. Crores have been invested. Now the bio-toilets are also ineffective [according to the report]. As of now, they have no solution for manual scavenging.

A private company in Kerala has developed a manhole-cleaning robot last year. The Delhi government had also planned to use the technology. How do you assess the role of such innovations and mechanisation in ending manual scavenging?

Mechanisation is possible, but it has to be initiated by the government of India, and later it can be taken to the state governments. But they do not want to do that. Here, a few private individuals or students are developing the technology. We have to welcome and appreciate them. With more than 1.3 billion people, do you think that a small group will find a solution? Caste system and mindset never allow the brain to even think about cleaning [septic tank and sewer] because we think that it is a Dalit or scheduled caste activity.

In 2018-19, 18,045 manual scavengers received one-time cash help of Rs 40,000 each under a self-employment scheme. The transfer increased 13 times to Rs 72 crore over a year from 2017-18 to 2018-19, according to a 2018 ministry of social justice and empowerment report. How beneficial are such transfers in rehabilitating manual scavengers? What are the policy changes needed?

The one-time cash assistance is not rehabilitation. It is support for manual scavengers who have left that work and are looking for another vocation. The rehabilitation [loan] is supposed to be between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 15 lakh, which the government is supposed to provide. This has not been initiated, and I can say that the government has done nothing for rehabilitation. It has only been given to over 18,000 [in 2018-19] when there are more than 54,000 identified. The one-time cash assistance is only relief.

So, what must be done for rehabilitation?

The government must give Rs 1 lakh to Rs 15 lakh to each person. We are demanding that this should not be a loan but a compensation for the community. All safai karmacharis are eligible for compensation from the government. There must be rapid mechanisation, and modernisation of sewage systems is important. Sewage treatment plants have to be developed in a decentralised manner (create localised solutions based on the local context) and private and public establishments must have a system to treat sewage water. Without all this, just constructing toilets will not make Swachh Bharat. You are creating an illusion and asking people to believe it.

(Paliath is an analyst with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend

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The Narendra Modi government’s much-hyped schemes — Ujjwala and Swachh Bharat Abhiyan — seem to have failed miserably in the prime minister’s own constituency, Varanasi. Majority of the women in Narottampur village, four kilometres from Banaras Hindu University, told NewsClick that they had not received any gas cylinder, nor had toilets been built under any scheme. A few of these women, who obtained gas cylinders, are finding it difficult to refill these owing to the high price.

Courtesy: News Click

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In several localities of Jammu, where sewerage works have been carried out, sewer pipes were already broken, and untreated sewage flowed into open nullahs.

The state’s winter capital generates over 22,000 tanker loads (157 million litres daily or mld) of untreated sewage (94% of the 167 mld sewage produced by the city), which flows into open drains and contaminates the city’s water bodies and sources of drinking water, threatening its population of over 550,000 and its large floating population of over 110,000 with water-borne diseases, based on information from project documents and government officials.

Jammu’s sewage problem represents urban India’s sewage problems–63% of India’s sewage is not treated contaminating rivers, seas and lakes, and polluting 351 stretches of India’s rivers, according to the latest available Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data, as FactChecker reported in October 2018. India has the capacity to treat only 37% of the sewage generated in urban areas.

India’s class-I cities (with a population over 100,000) and class-II towns (with a population between 50,000 and 100,000) together generate an estimated 33,212 mld of sewage, equivalent to 5.4 million tanker-loads (a tanker carries 7,000 litres)–if lined up, they would circle the equator 1.3 times. But these cities have the capacity to process only 24% of the sewage, according to the CPCB website.

The central government’s Swachh Bharat Mission has concentrated on building toilets but the mere construction of toilets is meaningless, unless these are connected with proper sewerage, FactChecker reported in its October 2018 assessment of the Swachh Bharat Mission.

About 167 mld of sewage flows out of Jammu, and the city has an installed capacity to treat 67 mld sewage (40%) in three sewage treatment plants (STPs). But only 10 mld sewage, i.e. about 15% of the STP installed capacity, and 6% of the sewage produced, is treated, according to Rakesh Gupta, executive engineer (sewerage) with the Economic Reconstruction Agency (ERA), set up to implement the Jammu and Kashmir Urban Sector Development Investment Program.

“During the monsoon, we have to wade through a mix of untreated sewage and solid waste. Water-borne diseases are also common,” said S Handoo, a 42-year-old resident of Paloura area in Jammu.

By the end of 2018, several ongoing sewerage projects will be completed, which will increase the city’s capacity to treat sewage to 15-20 mld, more than the current 10 mld but still lower than the city’s total sewage production, according to Gupta.

The situation in Jammu reflects the problem in the entire state. Urban areas of J&K generate 547 mld sewage, but can theoretically treat 48%, as per March 2017 data. The actual amount of sewage getting treated daily may be much lower, as is the case in Jammu, which has been selected as a Smart City under the central government’s Smart City Mission which aims to transform “Jammu into a sustainable and economically vibrant city focusing on tourism, quality of life and trade by leveraging its heritage and location”.

Through various sewerage projects, agencies are providing free household sewerage connections to households and trying to divert sewage away from open drains in Jammu

Winter capital sans sewerage
The city of Jammu, the capital of J&K from November to April, is located on the banks of Tawi River, a major tributary of the river Chenab. The city’s older parts are spread on the right bank of the Tawi, and newer parts on the left.  

The first master plan of the city was approved four decades ago, in 1978, for a plan period of 20 years from 1974 to 1994, but, even though sewage was part of the document, the city expanded without any provision for sewage collection and treatment. After seven years of a planning vacuum, when the city “was essentially let loose to the vicious urban forces”, according to the Jammu Master Plan-2032, the second master plan from 2001-2021 was approved only in 2004.

Even after these plans, only 3% of the city’s population was connected to a sewerage system in 2011, according to the master plan.  

In February 2017, the state cabinet, headed by the then chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, approved the Jammu Master Plan-2032.

“The city does not have a planned and a full-fledged sewerage system. Presently conservancy system of using bucket latrines which necessitates carriage of night soil from latrines by sweepers to cart trucks and then to the disposal site is practiced in few parts of the city. In most parts of the old city, night soil is flushed into roadside drains and natural water channels, causing fly nuisance and unhygienic conditions,” according to the master plan.

“The sullage waters in these areas are directly disposed into River Tawi or other water bodies without any treatment…Septic tanks are being used by the middle and higher income groups but safe disposal of the effluent is still lacking.”  

Further, “12% of the city population is without any sanitation and therefore resorting to open defecation”, the plan document said. Jammu’s self-declared ODF status was factually incorrect, a state government official said, on the condition of anonymity.  

“In spite of master plans, no comprehensive planning has been done for the balanced development of the city. Till 2003-04, there was no sewerage in the city at all,” said the official. Some sewage projects were floated after 2004, which are currently being built, but the condition is still pitiable as the projects cover only a small portion of the city and will impact 20-25% of the city’s area, he added.

Drinking water pipelines run along open drains which carry untreated sewage in Jammu. Residents complain this is a major reason for water-borne diseases.

A saga of incomplete, inadequate sewage projects
Currently two STPs in Jammu city, as we’ve described above, with capacities of 27 mld and 10 mld each, are nothing but white elephants. Several other sewage projects have also been unsuccessful.

In 2014-15, a sewerage project worth Rs 1,498 crore, proposed to be funded by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), was forwarded to the Central government. A pre-feasibility report was prepared, which covered the entire city through sewer network and STPs. “But, the state administration was not serious and didn’t pursue the project properly. The status of this project remains unknown,” the official, who wished to remain anonymous said.  

Meanwhile, there are several other ongoing sewage projects in the city.

For sewerage, Jammu is divided into three divisions–A, B and C, according to the Jammu Municipal Corporation. At present, sewage works are in progress in division A, on the right bank of Tawi, and cover parts of the old city. Under these sewerage projects, free household sewerage connections from kitchens, bathrooms and toilets are being provided.

For division B on the right bank of the Tawi and division C on the left bank, detailed project reports are being prepared, and the project is proposed to be funded by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency. A STP for division-B is proposed at Udheywala, and another for division-C is proposed at Gadigarh.

Three agencies together are responsible for the projects in division A: The ERA, the Urban Environmental Engineering Department (UEED), and the National Buildings Construction Corporation Limited (NBCC), which works under the UEED.

The NBCC’s project area is from Jewel Chowk to Peerkho bifurcating BC Road. Its sewerage project, sanctioned in 2006 under the Centre’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, costs Rs 130.75 crore and consists of 32 kilometre (km) of trunk, or main, sewer lines, 90.74 km lateral sewer lines, 30,400 household sewage connections, and a 27 mld STP.

When work began to lay the sewer lines, the agency realised that some sewage pipe networks were omitted in the main project. In order to cover the missing links, another detailed project report was made and sanctioned by the Indian government in 2012. This included laying of an additional 1.05 km trunk sewer line and 36.2 km of lateral sewer line at an additional cost of Rs 20.32 crore.

In several parts of the old city, such as Jewel Chowk, Raghunath Bazar, Karan Nagar, Amphala, etc, main trunk sewer lines were laid, but household connections were not provided. If provided, household sewage from these areas could have been transported to the 27 mld STP, which is currently lying idle. State officials claimed that funds were not provided at the right time to carry out the sewerage project in totality.

According to Rakesh Sharma, a city-based advocate, in several localities of Jammu where sewerage works have been carried out, either the main trunk sewer is missing, or household connections have not been provided.

“The (27mld) STP has already been constructed at Bhagwati Nagar and inaugurated about four years ago. But, since then it is lying idle and non-functional because pipelines to carry household sewage to the STP are not fully laid,” according to the government official. This was in spite of removing slum areas of Krishna Nagar from the project, where there was a lack of space to install sewer pipes, he said.

Similar complaints are pouring in from other areas as well. Sewerage works have been sublet to contractors but there is no accountability, according to Rajesh Sharma, a city-based advocate. In some areas, household connections have been provided, but main trunk sewer line is missing.

Under the UEED project, the UP Jal Nigam executed the sewerage scheme of Talab Tillo area. The project, with a total project cost of Rs 34.77 crore, consisted of 1.63 km of trunk sewer, 31.812 km of laterals and 5,704 house connections. It had a 10 mld STP, which was constructed in mid 2000, but the STP is now non-functional.

Now, the UEED is executing another project worth Rs 8.17 crore to provide sewerage to some new settlements in Talab Tillo, which were not part of the earlier project.

The ERA, the third agency, is executing sewage projects worth Rs 188 crore  in Janipur, Bhawani Nagar, Bakshi Nagar, Shakti Nagar and Paloura. The first package of the project–officially known as WW05–is 98% complete, and 17 nullahs have been tapped and sewage flowing into them has been diverted to the main sewage trunk line, informed Gupta of the ERA.

“There are 35 nullahs in Jammu city, of which about 15-16 directly dump untreated sewage into the Tawi river. The rest throw sewage in other water bodies and low-lying areas. All these nullahs must be tapped and untreated sewage diverted away from the river to the STPs,” he added.
The second part of the ERA’s project–WW03A–aims to provide 10,300 households with a sewerage connection, of which 7,200 have been provided a connection. The third package–WW07–also to provide household connections is “almost nearing completion”. All these projects of the ERA will be transferred to UEED by December 2018, as the UEED is responsible for the operation and maintenance of sewerage.

“Apart from laying sewer lines and providing household sewage connections, we have also built a 30 mld STP, which is functional and treats 10 mld sewage. By this year end, it should be able to receive a total of 15-20 mld sewage and treat the same,” said Gupta.

But, even after ERA and NBCC projects are complete, barely 25% of Jammu city’s area would be connected to sewerage.

(Nidhi Jamwal is an independent journalist based in Mumbai. Support for this story was provided through a fellowship under the DFID-funded Informing Change in the Indus Basin Project, led by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI). The views expressed are solely those of the author and in no way reflect those of IWMI or DFID.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

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New Delhi: An East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) worker cleaning a public toilet ahead of its inauguration.

With a year to go, different voices, including from the finance ministry and the Economic Advisory Council, have echoed the Prime Minister’s in declaring the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) an unparalleled success. This is regardless of the fact that the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India–the government’s own auditor–has raised serious questions on the veracity of SBM claims in at least two states. Many others, such as Accountability Initiative, which works to enhance accountability in governance, have been cautiously sceptical, too.

How can the truth behind such claims be judged? Accountable and responsive governance can only be ensured by reliable and comprehensive data.

Two strands
Although generally used as an umbrella term for government sanitation efforts, SBM actually comprises two divergent arms for rural and urban India, each with its own Management Information System (MIS). After their launch in October 2014, SBM-Gramin (SBM-G), or rural, quickly established itself as the role model while SBM-Urban (SBM-U) faced lower allocations, a smaller mandate, an uncertain departmental home, all of which contributed to its slow start.

This difference was reflected in their respective mechanisms for transparency. SBM-G created a comprehensive, dynamic dashboard, outfitted with a hyperactive ticker that counted toilets with such vigour that each reference to it needed a timestamp.

Other elements too were presented by SBM-G in great detail and from different analytical viewpoints. Not only was overall expenditure reported, it was broken by month, by component, and segregated by source of funds.

In contrast, SBM-U had little in terms of either design sophistication or administrative detail.

Over the last two years, both portals have undergone significant changes. Some changes were cosmetic, such as changing layout to highlight human-interest elements. Others seemed to be of importance although only in the esoteric world of policy-making. These included a steady accumulation of guidelines dealing with increasingly finer elements of the programme in SBM-G.

Disappearing toilets
SBM-U originally targeted the construction of 10.4 million individual household latrines (IHHL). States undertook a reassessment of toilet needs, and in February 2017, the overall IHHL target was reduced across 23 states and union territories (UTs) by 36% to 6.64 million. Andhra Pradesh, for instance, saw its target reduce by 52%. By this point, however, a few states had already claimed construction numbers based on initial targets.

As a result, between November 2016 and November 2017, 208,781 urban household toilets across seven states and UTs vanished from the MIS, Accountability Initiative found. While Andhra Pradesh accounted for more than half of these disappearances (131,530), sizeable differences were noted in other states, too. For instance, Uttar Pradesh lost close to 37,000 toilets, and Chandigarh had almost 13,000 fewer toilets in a year.

No explanation for this sudden revision was given. This issue becomes significant not only because of its pertinence to data quality and transparency but even more so given that at least Rs 6,000 is given as monetary incentive for toilet construction under the Urban Swachh Bharat Mission.

It was not just the number of household toilets that went down, which could plausibly, even if not convincingly, be attributed to miscounting. The number of community and public toilets (CTs and PTs) too reduced by 36,754 across five states during this same period, primarily in Tamil Nadu (32,780).

In the month between October and November 2017, the number of CT/PTs completed reduced by 13,640 across 10 states. Elsewhere, the mission seemed to be unsure of its own scope. Thus, while one page in the MIS reported that till December 2017, all 51,734 wards had achieved 100% door-to-door waste collection, another page in the same MIS reported that this proportion was 67% (55,913 out of 82,607).

Meanwhile, less than 37% of India’s waste is processed. Yet, only 29% of solid waste management (SWM) funds of Rs 7,366 crore had been released to states by January 2018. Major waste generators such as Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra had been released less than 5% of their SWM mission allocations by January 2018. As of September 2018, the SBM-U website reported no data on funds released for the current financial year.

Disappearing data
SBM-U never carried the same degree of detail as its rural counterpart. Its attempts at adding these details added confusion instead.

SBM-G had always made it a point to be transparent. The seemingly unimportant details it provided allowed for implementation to be unpacked and gaps to be identified. Over the last year, however, SBM-G has taken several steps in the opposite direction.

In January 2018, Accountability Initiative observed that while the indicators in the dashboard were intact, data for years prior to 2016-17 had been taken off. Between then and September 2018, most of these indicators have been removed from the public domain. Today, the much-celebrated dashboard tells a much shorter story, revealing more in what it omits.

While it is speculative to surmise the causes behind this retrenchment, it may be worthwhile to analyse which data have been removed and which retained.

What has been removed includes all data related to releases and expenditure of funds, conversion of insanitary toilets which foster manual scavenging, and several details of toilet construction. At present, the dashboard contains only four indicators, namely the toilet construction target achieved, the number of toilet photos uploaded (although not the actual photographs), the number of villages declared and verified open defecation-free, and the number of swachhagrahis (mission workers) engaged.

The story now narrated is familiar. That 94% of India has toilets, 470,000 of 600,000 villages have been declared ODF, and this has been done with the assistance of 496,000 swachhagrahis.

The data which were removed make the story more interesting. For instance, Accountability Initiative found that Rs 157 crore was spent on behaviour change efforts in 2014-15, which decreased to Rs 147 crore in 2015-16, and further to Rs 124 crore in 2016-17. During this same time, the pace of the mission’s achievements increased, with 40,030, 135,652 and 167,090 ODF declarations in successive years.

Effectively, this means SBM-G convinced and converted millions of families at a cost of Rs 33,382 per village in 2014-15, down to Rs 10,837 in 2015-16, and Rs 7,421 in 2016-17.

Independent evaluations such as by the CAG are essential to accountable governance, but they only play a supplementary role. The mainstay remains administrative data compiled on an ongoing basis. In order to illuminate, these data must address the entire implementation framework and include information on inputs and processes that led to the resulting outputs and outcomes. In the absence of regular and credible data on these processes, it is difficult to believe that either of these missions has succeeded, irrespective of what is being claimed.

(Deshpande is a Senior Research Associate at the Accountability Initiative – Centre for Policy Research.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

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Courtesy: Newsclick.in

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In this video, Anand Teltumdbe, who currently teaches at the Goa Institute of Management, speaks about his latest book The Republic of Caste, published by Navayana. The book, he says, is a compilation of his columns at the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), which have been updated to suit the contemporary context. He also says that there is a need for the Marxist and Ambedkarite schools of thought to converge, and makes a case for it in the book as well.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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Swachh Bharat Mission lacks holistic Human Rights Approach
According to Leo Heller, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, “Policy and programme initiatives in India’s water and sanitation sector, and the related implementation measures, lack a clear and holistic human rights-based approach. The national programmes do not incorporate the human rights to drinking water and sanitation as a whole but rather in a piecemeal manner.”
 

Coercion and shaming
Heller is particularly disturbed by the manner in which people are coerced into stopping open defecation. “In the interest of achieving the targets and obtaining the corresponding rewards, I have received several testimonies that people are being coerced—sometimes through public authorities—to, on the one hand, quickly construct toilets and, on the other, stop practising open defecation,” observes Heller. “For instance, individuals could have their ration cards revoked, which directly impacts on their right to food. Households with overdue energy bills, hitherto tolerated by the authorities, could have their service cut off. In others cases, individuals defecating in the open are apparently being shamed, harassed or otherwise penalized,” he explains. “In my view, these abuses require a continuous monitoring and accountability by the several tiers of government for the achievement of open defecation free and, at the same time, upholding the dignity of all persons and without violating other fundamental rights,” asserts Heller.

 
Incomplete or defective infrastructure
According to surveys conducted in 2016 and 2017 by the Quality Council of India, approximately 91 per cent of toilets that had been built were being used. An assessment conducted by WaterAid suggests a different scenario, highlighting that usage may be susceptible to decreasing very soon without continued efforts to make infrastructure sustainable. In the survey, “only 33 per cent of toilets were deemed sustainably safe (eliminating risks of contamination in the long term); 35 per cent were safe, but would need major upgrades to remain safe in the long term; and 31 per cent were unsafe, creating immediate health hazards”. Heller says, “Indeed, I observed several cases of abandoned or poorly maintained toilets. Toilets may also be installed with doors that do not have locks, which negatively affect users of privacy. Conversely, I observed and heard of several cases where functioning toilets exist in public places but are left locked.”
 

Clean Water Challenges
Heller also observes that the programs aimed at providing clean drinking water have progressed, but at a very slow pace. “The way in which Indian people currently access water services is far from meeting requirements established by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 6.1 target and indicator, namely, through the concept of ‘safely managed service’. This standard requires that water is accessible on premises, meaning that public water points are not considered as ‘safely managed service. The concept also states that water should be available when needed, which will require that water in urban and rural areas is provided continuously.”
 
 
Fecal Matter and Hazardous Chemicals in Water
In 2015, 92 per cent of India population was reported to have access to improved sources of water. When the stricter definition adopted under the SDGs is used, this proportion reduces dramatically: only 49 per cent of the rural population receive water meeting this standard. For the urban areas, 73 per cent of the population have water accessible on premises and 86 per cent have it available when needed.1 No consolidated information for drinking water quality in Indian urban areas are available in the SDG baseline report. Water contamination is a huge problem in India. According to Heller, “Safely managed service also means that water should be free from faecal contamination and hazardous levels of arsenic and fluoride. In connection with this, the relevant bodies at all levels require appropriate processes to monitor and survey drinking water quality, and to properly remove chemical and microbiological contamination.”
 

Need an intersectional lens to view the problem
Heller says, “Several determinants have a heightened likelihood of predicting where or why people have lower quality access to adequate water and sanitation services: disability, gender, caste, tribe, place of residence in terms of urban or rural areas, land tenure (especially in urban areas, e.g. residence in formal vs. informal settlements), among others.” The ways in which these factors can impact on one’s access are diverse but, importantly, a combination of any of these factors is likely to have a multiplying effect. “For example, disabled persons widely suffer from a lack of accessible sanitation infrastructure, but female disabled persons can suffer more, and still more from the added lack of material and social conditions to ensure menstrual hygiene management,” he elaborates.
 
According to a global report, only 43 per cent of India’s population has access to piped water. In rural areas, where 67.5 per cent of the country’s residents live, access to piped water is only available to 31 per cent of the population (about 270 million people out of the country’s 1.3 billion). Meanwhile, in urban areas it is available to 69 per cent of the population. A similarly stark divide separates access to water on premises in rural vs. urban areas: 49 per cent and 73 per cent, respectively in 2015. Not being available on premises, rural populations—most often women and children—are thus far more likely to spend precious time fetching water from surface water, boreholes, tube wells, or in some cases public stand posts and water tankers.

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“Brother and Sisters, we are living in 21st century. Has it ever pained us that our mothers and sisters have to defecate in open? Whether dignity of women is not our collective responsibility?,” Narendra Modi said in his first Independence Day address as prime minister in 2014. “Can’t we just make arrangements for toilets for the dignity of our mothers and sisters?”  

 
Household toilet availability has improved from 41.93% in 2014 to 63.98% in 2017, and Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Kerala have achieved 100% open defecation-free (ODF) status, data from the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation show (as of May 22, 2017). However, almost all the progress reported by the ministry has been through no third-party verification, due to which the World Bank is holding off a $1.5 billion loan it had promised.
 
As the BJP government completes three years in office this week, IndiaSpend is analysing five of its key electoral promises–on employment, Swachh Bharat, roads, access to electricity and terrorism. In the second part today, we look at how the status of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
 
No independent monitoring
 
While Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin guidelines clearly envisage a yearly, country-wide, independent third-party assessment of the sanitation status of rural areas, there has been no independent monitoring so far.
 
The World Bank, which had promised a loan of $1.5 billion for Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin– the rural arm of the mission, has not released the first instalment which was due in July 2016 because India has not fulfilled the condition of conducting and announcing results of an independent verification survey, The Economic Times reported in January 2017.
 
It has rated the overall implementation progress of the programme as “moderately unsatisfactory.”
 
Construction spree
 
Since 2014, 40 million household latrines have been constructed. Between May 1 and May 21, 2017, 489,710 individual household latrines were constructed across the country, data accessed on May 22, 2017 from the Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin website show. That’s an average of nearly 25,000 toilets constructed per day.
 
Gram panchayats have self-declared 193,081 villages to be ODF, but 53.9% of these have not been verified, according to the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, which is responsible for Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin, which accounts for 85% of Swachh Bharat Mission’s budget. (Data accessed on May 22, 2017).
 
Villages are considered ‘open defecation-free’ when no faeces are openly visible and every household and public/community institution uses safe technology to dispose of faeces in such a way that there is no contamination of surface soil, groundwater or surface water; excreta is inaccessible to flies or animals, with no manual handling of fresh excreta; and there are no odour and unsightly conditions.
 
Usually, an ‘ODF village’ declaration is made by the village or gram panchayat. The state government is supposed to carry out a first verification within three months, and a second verification around six months after the self-declaration.
 

Source: Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation; Data accessed on May 22, 2017
 
Latrine built is not equal to latrine used
 
As of 2016, 36.7% of rural households and 70.3% of urban households–48.4% of households overall–used improved sanitation facility, data from the National Family Health Survey 4, which was conducted between January 2015 and December 2016, show. A majority, 51.6%, did not.
 
Improved sanitation facility means having a system that separates human excreta from human contact which includes piped sewer system, septic tank, pit latrine, etc.
 
About 47% of those who defecated in the open said they did so because it was pleasant, convenient and comfortable, a 2014 survey of 3,200 households in five states with the highest rates of open defecation found. Among households that had built a latrine, 40% had at least one family member defecating in the open, the study conducted by the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics, a non-profit research institution, found.
 
“Programmes must concentrate on behaviour change and promoting latrine use, rather than building latrines. Although building latrines could be part of a successful policy package, little will be accomplished by planning to build latrines that will go unused,” the authors noted.
 
Indians’ preference for open defecation has to do with the practice of untouchability and beliefs about purity, according to this 2017 study by the same institute.
 
Through quantitative and qualitative studies, they found people considered having and using pit latrines impure and polluting. “Open defecation, in contrast, is seen as promoting purity and strength, particularly by men, who typically decide how money is spent in rural households,” the study found.
 
Information, education and communication neglected
 
Since the focus of Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin is on behaviour change, the guidelines require that 8% of the funds be allocated for information, education and communication (IEC) activities.
 
During the 2016-17 financial year, 1% of the total expenditure had been made on IEC up to January 2017, according to Accountability Initiative’s budget brief. In contrast, 98% of the funds had been spent on construction of toilets in individual households.
 
Unreliable beneficiary data
 
Duplicate entries, ghost beneficiaries and missing households were the first stumbling block that researchers from the Accountability Initiative of the Centre for Policy Research faced while tracking beneficiaries of the government’s sanitation interventions across 7,500 households in 10 districts and five states in a December 2015 study.
 
Eventually, they studied 1,500 households that they could identify from the list. They found that a third of the households that government records showed as having achieved “sanitation status” actually had toilets, while 36% that had constructed toilets said these were unusable.
 
Of the households with a latrine which had at least one member of the family defecating in the open, the most common reasons cited were absence of water and the pit being too small.
 
Further, 40% of those who had applied for money from the government to build toilets reported not receiving it.
 
Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban Progress also slow
 
As many as 3.1 million (88%) household toilets have been built in urban areas, against a target of 3.5 million for 2017-18, according to the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban website. Also, 115,786 (56%) community toilets have been built against a target of 204,000.
 
Yet, only 36.8% wards in urban areas reported a proper liquid-waste disposal system for community and public toilets, according to the 2016 Swachhta Status Report.
 
The focus of Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban is slowly shifting from construction of toilets to solid waste management, the Accountability Initiative’s January 2017 analysis of the programme’s budget noted.
 
Solid waste management includes segregating waste at source; collecting, transporting and storing waste; as well as processing, treating and finally disposing of it.
 
In 2015-16, 25% of the total money released was for solid waste management and 70% for toilet construction; in 2016-17, 45% of the money released was for solid waste management and 45% for toilet construction.
 
However, six states and union territories, including Gujarat, Assam and Kerala, are yet to receive any funds for solid waste management since the start of the programme, the study noted.
 
For the 2016-17 financial year, 23 states and union territories were yet to receive any funds for solid waste management till January 18, 2017, the analysis noted.
 
(Yadavar is principal correspondent with IndiaSpend.)
 
This is the second of a five-part series tracking the status of the BJP government’s promises three years after it was sworn in. You can read the first part here.

Courtesy: India Spend

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Swachh Survekshan, the name of a survey commissioned by the central ministry of drinking water and sanitation and carried out by the Quality Council of India in June-July this year (2016), covered 75 districts marked top performers by the ministry itself.

Its report, released on September 8, says that none of the districts can claim that all its households have access to safe toilets and are using them. Sanitation minister Narendra Singh Tomar had in August told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply that 17 districts had declared themselves free of open defecation.

Among the districts making the claim, as shown on the Swachh Bharat website, are Narmada in Gujarat, Ajmer in Rajasthan, Ri Bhoi in Meghalaya, and the Himachal Pradesh district of Lahaul and Spiti.

September 8’s survey report says that only 52 per cent of households in Narmada district have access to toilets and are using them. The corresponding figures are 58 per cent in Lahaul and Spiti, 62 per cent in Ajmer and 78 per cent in Ri Bhoi. Defending the government’s claims, a senior ministry official said the latest survey, being a sample survey, may have failed to give the correct picture.

Since the discovery of only one counterexample is enough to refute a claim of 100 per cent success, however, arguments about sample bias or sample size are irrelevant to such cases. One can, however, cite sample bias to question the specific figures (such as 52 per cent for Narmada) the survey has come up with.

Ironically, it is Sindhudurg in Maharashtra and Mandi in Himachal Pradesh to be the best-performing districts. In both districts, 99 per cent households have been found to be using toilets.

Twenty districts have scores above 90 per cent, including Nadia (97 per cent), Hooghly (97), North 24-Parganas (96) and East Midnapore (95) in Bengal. The minister, Tomar had in his Rajya Sabha statement said that sanitation coverage had increased from 42 per cent in October 2014, when Swachh Bharat was launched, to 53 per cent on July 27 this year.
After releasing the report today, Tomar said the government would use the data to sensitise state governments and boost the drive to free the country of open defecation by October 2019.

The survey also examined whether households were littering their neighbourhoods and whether public places like temples and community centres were clean. It found districts like Panchmahal in Gujarat and Dungarpur and Pali in Rajasthan lagging on all counts. Both these fall in BJP ruled states.

The ministry released separate data on state-wise toilet coverage. It put Sikkim at the top (99 per cent), followed by Himachal (97) and Kerala (96). Bengal scored 77 while Bihar (25), Odisha (33) and Jharkhand (41) brought up the rear.

A survey conducted last year by the National Sample Survey Organisation had found that about 90 per cent of households that have toilets actually use the facility.
 
 

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