Will 2015 see the ‘Clean India’ mega campaign shift gear from photo-ops to genuine and concerted action? Unless the Government takes a holistic view, it may just end up as yet another programme under a different name. Actually, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is nothing new. It is an extension of Central Rural Sanitation Programme (of Rajiv Gandhi) to be followed by the Complete Sanitation Campaign (of Atal Behari Vajpayee). Only Modi has given it a particular thrust by invoking the name of Mahatma Gandhi and calling on people to ensure cleanliness in and around the community.
To make the programme fully operational, the intrinsic need is the availability of water along with proper drainage, sewage and waste management system. Surveys have revealed that most toilets at schools in rural and semi-urban areas don’t have water connections, thus making their usage impossible. The sources of water in villages are ponds, which are polluted and trigger various diseases. There is no clear guideline either on how the Government intends to tackle this problem by helping state governments or whether the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) would intervene and start work in one or two villages in each district.
Even in many railway stations, several toilets do not have adequate supply of water and are not regularly cleaned. Then there are slums, squatter settlements and refugee colonies in crowded urban agglomerations, where there are no toilets and no availability of water, thereby forcing the people to defecate in the open. The dynamics of the whole problem is easier said but its accomplishment is quite difficult, both from the financial angle and the perspective of making people use toilets and ensure its cleanliness.
Financially, the Government would need anything around over 2 per cent of GDP annually till the target date. Obviously, a part of this huge expenditure has to be borne by raising additional funds through disinvestment or through checking enormous leakages in social schemes. What has not been clearly outlined is whether the private sector can be requested to adopt one village, near their area of operation, and carry out this sanitation programme.
The other aspect of the programme is the generation of awareness about the hazards of open defecation for which NGOs and community-based organisations would have to be involved. The CPCB had written to some NGOs about the work of cleaning of water bodies but this was not followed up for reasons best known to it. Both the work of awareness generation of cleaning of ponds etc. and using toilets have to be vested with the civil society organisations for best results.
The Abhiyan requires that the panchayats and the State public health directorates be little more active. The supply of clean drinking water is possibly a bigger problem than open defecation. Water becomes contaminated due to industrial effluents, man-induced activities such as using fertiliser for increased food productivity, dumping of untreated wastewater and garbage and also from natural substances found in the earth’s crust such as arsenic and fluoride. At best, we treat about around 70 per cent of our domestic waste, dumping the rest untreated into the nearest water bodies.
Without delving into figures, it is confirmed that sources of most water available in rural and semi-urban areas are not fit for drinking purposes, as there is contamination, in some cases severe. As per one estimate, over 30 per cent of the rural population lack access to drinking water, and only seven states have full availability of drinking water for rural inhabitants.
Arsenic, fluoride, lead and mercury have been found in parts of the country and a section of people face severe consequences due to such contamination, including death. The spread of arsenic contamination, especially in West Bengal, Bihar and U.P. has compounded the problem. Arsenic has acquired an unparallel reputation as a poison with arsenic trioxide, a tasteless and odourless inorganic compound. It was first detected in Taiwan but in the early 90s was found in West Bengal and Bangladesh. Arsenic in groundwater has been found above the maximum possible limit (0.05 mg. per litre) in 79 blocks in nine districts of West Bengal. The content of arsenic is particularly very high in groundwater of south 24 Parganas where reports indicate 0.96 to 3.2 mg./litre.
Around eight million people reside in these villages over an area of 40,000 km. and may be considered at risk of arsenic poisoning while around 40 per cent people have been drinking arsenic contaminated water, as per the All India Institute of Hygiene & Public Health. In Bangladesh, an estimated 30 to 35 million people have been drinking arsenic contaminated tube-well water and more than 14,000 people with arsenic-related ailments have so far been identified (Feroze Ahmed, 2000).
Streams, lakes and rivers are the final resting place of cans, bottles, plastics and other various types of household articles. Fertilizers and pesticides, used in agriculture, enter water bodies as run-off or percolate into the groundwater aquifers. Estimate is that around 68.5 litres of industrial wastewater is dumped directly into local rivers and streams without prior treatment. Groundwater has been found unfit for drinking in about 25 industrial zones of the country.
As around 90 per cent of drinking water needs are met from groundwater sources, both its depletion and contamination has posed a big challenge in recent times. While a recent study by NASA revealed that groundwater levels in northern India have been declining by more than 33 cm. (one ft.) per year over the past decade, the extent of water pollution has spread quite rapidly and has assumed disastrous dimensions in certain regions. Worse, little action is being taken by local bodies due to lack of resources and adequate technical expertise.
Experts in the field have concluded that isolated working of the departments of health, environment, rural development – both at the Centre and states level – has not tackled the problem from the first to the 11th Plan period, though there has been steady growth in water and sanitation sectors. WHO expert and member, National Ganga River Basin Authority Prof. KJ Nath, says the basic maladies of the present set up can easily be identified.
These are, absence of a core sector of environmental health within the department of health, including experts with skills in environmental epidemiology, health and socio-ecological sciences; lack of appropriate legislations related to environment and health; lack of information on environmental and epidemiological aspects and environmental health impacts related to air water, soil, shelter and ecology; lack of training and orientation of health professionals and lack of public awareness and understanding and risk perception and communication strategies for risk abatement.
While Government support will be forthcoming, it is imperative to spread awareness among the rural population regarding water and sanitation on a massive scale, the responsibility for which should be entrusted to NGOs with expertise and skill. They should also be given the task of training panchayat representatives as also teaching people in simple terms to change their age-old practices keeping in view the intrinsic relationship between water, sanitation and human health. Additionally, there is need for a programme of epidemiological research on environmental health impacts related to water, air, soil and ecology in order to understand the problems. And its findings must be disseminated at the grass-root level. – INFA