Toiltes first

Swachch Bharat is holistic concept covering  swach jameen, swach paani and swach hawa. Uncontaminated food, drinking water and pollution free air are possible when Swachch Bharat is dreamt and realized in its totality. 

But there has to be a beginning. PM  Shri Narendra Modi has given a call for elimination of open defecation by 2019, the 150^th birth anniversary of Mahatma. Mahatma’s penchant for cleanliness is too well known. It would be a great tribute to the memory of Mahatma if the challenge is achieved.

Sangita Vyas has established, backed by her team’s primary study, that attitude towards using latrines is very important to make the mission success.The reasons for not using government built latrines revealed in their study are varied and some of them are interesting like preference to open defecation due to pleasure and comfort. One can completely agree with Sangita Vyas. Concept of cleanliness is more of attitude as I brought in my earlier post. At the same time, the very requirement of facilities cannot be discounted.

In fact, construction of toilets and attitudinal change have to go together. The very lack of required number of toilets cannot be ignored. It may be presumed that in  urban scenario, reasons like fear of cleaning the pits, pleasure of defecation in open may not be as valid or as strong as they are in rural parlance. Here, mere lack of toilets could be a serious reason for compelled open defecation. Joint Monitoring Programme for water supply and sanitation of WHO/Unicef's data (updated April 2014) reveal that the open defecation has decreased steeper in urban areas than in rural areas over 22 years between 1990 to 2012. However, having total 48% open defecation even 65 years after independence is shameful to say the least. 

Joint Monitoring Programme of WHO/UNICEF - estimated trends of sanitation coverage
India	Sanitation coverage estimates
	Urban (%)		Rural (%)		Total (%)
	1990	2012	1990	2012	1990	2012
Improved facilities	50	60	7	25	18	36
Shared facilities	17	20	1	5	5	9
Other unimproved	5	8	2	5	3	7
Open defecation	28	12	90	65	74	48
Source: WHO/UNICEF JMP, 2014

Therefore, construction of toilets is of prime importance. It is rather first step towards Swach Bharat. 

Apart from attitudinal disdain to use toilets, reasons like expenditure to maintain the toilets (including that of clearing filled pits), requirement of considerable quantum of water for flushing, lack of space in slum areas to allocate for toilet within small houses are some more reasons that need to be addressed for popularizing toilet usage. In rural areas, visiting nearby water bodies for open defecation might be a act of pleasure involving the morning walk. Construction of toilets near such water bodies could be thought of.

Finally, the wastage released on railway tracks across the country is as bad as open defecation. That means about 11 lakh population traveling on trains daily are openly defecating !!! It is an irony that toilets and open defecation coexist on trains. … to be noted seriously to address this issue. 

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