A lot of us have grown up watching advertisements on national television about the need clean and well-maintained toilet facilities in every home and in public spaces.
On Gandhi Jayanti, 2019, PM Narendra Modi claimed India was open-defecation free; a milestone made possible because of the Swachh Bharat campaign.
However, on the World Toilet Day the experts that The Morning Standard spoke to feel the country is still at the beginning of a long journey, with Covid-19 as the new roadblock.
“Providing toilets is a good starting point, but not the end to achieve safe sanitation. The concept of ‘flush and forget’ won’t work. We need phased collection and treatment of the waste water,” says Prof. Srinivas Chary Vedala, Director, Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), an institution for public policy and capacity development. Established in 1956, the institute also works in urban development and sanitation. India generates 38,000 million litres per day (mld) sewage.
What is shocking is that 80 per cent of this sludge – human excreta and water mixture – remains untreated and is dumped directly into the drains, lakes or rivers, thus posing a serious threat to the ecosystem.
Vedala says, “Delhi is a complex city, and is facing challenges for a couple of reasons. Problem No. 1 is that the whole of Delhi is not covered with a sewerage system. Second, 50 per cent of the city, including highly populated slums, bastis and low-income housing, may have toilets but are not connected to drain systems. Because of this, insanitary situations are prevalent in substantial portions of Delhi, and this is leading to disease burden. Sanitation is sub-optimum, and the flushed out waste is only partially treated leading to water pollution.”
Moreover, the faecal waste is not evacuated timely from these 50 per cent households that rely on the on-site systems, explains Vedala. “That can lead to a potential overflow. Private operators charge Rs 2,000- Rs 3,000 per trip to desludge, which the urban poor can’t afford, and they have no clarity on where to discard this waste.”
Experts feel Covid-19 has aggravated poor sanitation. “There are more chances of the spread happening through community toilets. That is what happened in Dharavi slums. So we need to have more anaerobic toilets,” says Mahesh Nathan, Senior Director, Special Projects, World Vision India.
Their WASH programme is being run across the country to ensure that every child has access to improved hygiene, water and sanitation. Rigid and backward behavioural patterns is another key problem, Nathan feels.
“Bringing about the behavioural change — to get people to use the toilets — is the need. Now, the government and even we are focusing on social behavioural change communication. But this is something that will take time and people from different parts of the society, including corporates, ward people, and NGOs will have to pitch in to help,” shares Nathan.
Experts believe that with the increase in the number of toilets, more faecal waste will end up in sewers, which will lead to more faecal waste being dumped into water bodies.
“Almost all households have access to the toilet but the challenge is what happens afterwards — the sewage treatment. That is the big story which needs to be addressed by the current government. So, the best solution for Delhi is to expand the sewerage system to every corner and connect it to a wastewater treatment plant. It costs more but it is the only way out,” says Vedala.
Talking about manual scavenging, Vedala says that its conventional definition may not be prevalent in a substantial way in Delhi.
“But indirect scavenging is still happening rampantly in congested areas, small lanes, where mechanised machines cannot reach. But now the government is trying to procure small suction vehicles, which can go into narrow lanes and desludge the toilets for free. That work is just about to begin and it will be super helpful for Delhi,” he adds.
Nathan seconds Vedala by saying that the problem of manual scavenging occurs because of septic tanks fitted with old technology still being in use. “The solution is to look at decentralised faecal treatment systems,” he adds.
Sewage Hazard
India generates 38,000 million litres per day (mld) sewage. What is shocking is that 80 per cent of this sludge – human excreta and water mixture – remains untreated and is dumped directly into the drains, lakes or rivers, thus posing a serious threat to the ecosystem.