Spotlight: India's "toilet mission" still has long way to go

by Asgwani Upadhyay

NEW DELHI, Nov. 30 (Xinhua) -- Toilets are the much talked about subject these days in India, as the country with a billion-plus population lacks proper sanitation and cleanliness.

The Indian government embarked upon the biggest-ever toilet building and awareness campaign in Asia's third largest economy three years ago.

Amid much hype and hoopla, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's flagship cleanliness drive has seen participation of all -- from the country's president to companies and common people.

Under a "Clean India Mission," the Indian government vowed to build 100 million toilets across the country, 55 million of which have already been constructed.

More than 279,000 of over 600,000 villages as well as 1,337 out of 8,000 cities in the country have been declared open-defecation free.

ALL ABOARD

People from all walks of life, including public servants, celebrities, sportspersons, political leaders, all have teamed up for cleanliness drives all over India.

Several private companies as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have also started investing in sanitation as a UNICEF survey recently done in India shows that return on toilet-investment goes as high as 430 percent in the country.

With the tagline "When nature calls, pick your phone," a mobile APP was also launched earlier this year to locate the nearest public toilets.

A less-publicized "Toilet Museum" in New Delhi has also got a wider publicity after much "toilet-talk" sounded louder in the past years.

The museum displays toilets and sanitation cultures prevalent in various parts of the world during different historical periods, including India's Indus-valley civilization, which is claimed to be the world's first to have a proper sanitation system.

It tried to make people talk about one of the most neglected issues in India -- toilet, sanitation and hygiene.

India now has a population of more than 1.3 billion and most of them reside in the countryside where access to toilet is still very low. Over half of the country's population defecate in open -- on railway tracks, farm fields, forests, along highways and beside water bodies.

This practice not only spreads diseases and causes health hazards but also poses a safety issue, especially for rural women who often have to face taunts and sometimes even sexual assault when they go out to relieve themselves.

To avoid any mishap, women try to go in small groups. Often, they hold on for hours which experts suggest may cause serious health problems such as infection, particularly to pregnant women.

SCENARIO IS CHANGING

However, this scenario is changing gradually with a heightened media campaign to generate public awareness about toilets and hygiene. A Bollywood movie with "toilet" as its theme also garnered a nationwide audience earlier this year, and helped create a successful mass-movement against open defecation in India.

It all started with Modi's clarion call for cleanliness in 2014 on the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi who was also a staunch supporter for cleanliness.

The goal was to make entire India clean and open-defecation free by Oct. 2, 2019 when the countrymen celebrates the 150th birth anniversary of the father of the nation.

According to a recent government survey, 62.5 percent of rural households have now access to toilets.

Although many dispute this figure, many toilets are really being constructed across the country and public awareness about using toilets has increased manifoldly in recent years.

Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, who is widely known as "toilet man" of India due to his crusade to build thousands of toilets in every nook and corner of the country, hails the Indian prime minister's efforts to make India a clean nation.

Pathak's organization Sulabh International has adopted several villages in order to make them clean and open-defecation free, including a village in the northern Indian province of Haryana, which was rechristened as "Trump Village" in the name of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Applauding Modi's efforts to provide "toilets for all," Pathak has given Modi the name "Second Gandhi."

"After Gandhi, honorable Prime Minister Narendra is the second person who has taken up cleanliness and toilets (as an important issue) from core of his heart. And therefore I say, he has changed a culture of sanitation," Pathak said.

"He has asked to end the practice of open defecation by 2019 and the government is working on that," said Pathak.

DRAWING EXPERIENCE FROM CHINA'S SUCCESS

B.R. Deepak, a sinologist and professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said that India could draw lessons from China's past experience in the "toilet revolution."

Recalling his first-ever visit to China for study in 1991, Deepak said: "The public sanitation especially the public toilets were going through a massive transformation (then in China)."

"We stayed in a building especially built to accommodate foreign students with excellent facilities, but ...all toilets were squatting ones... many toilets including some on the metro line 1 and 2 (in Beijing) had no doors, no separators put for male urinals, and the stench was horrible," Deepak said.

"However, with the economy taking flight and people and government getting concerned about the quality of life, public sanitation and 'image' became an issue for public debate. People started to talk about 'toilet revolution' which quickly spread from Beijing to rest of the country," he said.

"The investment peaked during the Olympics and after that China never looked back. In fact, thousands of toilets were built or renovated in all the tourist places," Deepak said.

"I could see this happening in China's remote counties, townships, and even villages as I surveyed over 40 villages in a couple of provinces during my field trip in 2006 and 2007. The toilets are transformed to clean energy-saving, to high tech ones accustomed for any weather conditions," he noted.

Today, India seems to have adopted sanitation best practices prevalent in different parts of the world, though in bits and pieces.

South Delhi Municipal Corporation, one of the three municipalities in Indian capital New Delhi, inaugurated a "Pink Toilet" last month, which was touted as the first of its kind in India, and was unique in many ways.

It has a sanitary-napkin vending machine for the convenience of ladies, a baby-feeding area and an incinerator to burn the waste on the spot. Another "toilet for children" has also been opened in Delhi.

"There is good cleanliness at this toilet and everything is here. I get all essential facilities here," said Rajni, a user of "Pink Toilet."

Building on the success, the authorities are now looking forward to replicating these "exclusive washrooms" across Delhi and in different parts of the country. Yet, maintaining them still remains a challenge due to several shortcomings in the process.

South Delhi Municipal Corporation, which launched several initiatives for public hygiene over the last months, including making 4,000 toilets in hotels, restaurants and oil-stations accessible to the public, has decided to install feedback devices in toilets for real-time monitoring.

"Maintaining the toilets is a big challenge. So we are finding out the way how can we maintain the toilets, cleanliness and other things. We have 355 public toilets (in our area) and we have 512 urinals," said Kamaljeet Sehrawat, mayor of South Delhi Municipal Corporation.

"We are installing a device which is called CFD, that is ... citizen feedback device. We are putting up these devices in more than 400 toilets. And that will work as an alert. With that you can give us report about cleanliness, about water, about electricity," said Sehrawat.

Experts suggest that although three years of India's toilet mission has shown satisfactory results, the country has a long way to go before bringing a "toilet-revolution" in its true sense. Enditem