Why This Blog

India's charismatic new Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, in his first address to the Nation on its 68th Independence day - August 15, 2014, openly talked about a taboo subject-- that of Poo and Loo. Thousands had gathered there, and millions were glued to their television sets. Much was expected from him in announcements of sweeping reforms, economic growth, job creation, safety of women and so on. He had been elected on his promises to put development and change in the country.

Modi's was dressed like a bride's father at a traditional Indian wedding -- in colorful Jodhpur style flowing turban. He spoke without notes and made animated gestures with both hands.  He was the personification of leadership. He noted that half of the nation's population did not have access to household latrines and that it was a matter of shame for the country for half its people not having a latrine in their homes. Never before had a  Prime Minister spoken with such candor on this taboo topic, although world agencies had identified the problem and its devastating impact on to public health. This is a topic that is rarely mentioned in common parley. We Indians use euphemisms in referring to toilet -- constitutional, excreta, stools. or defecation. We say poo, poop, loo, du-du, can, motion, 'going', bladder problem, front/back door, can, bath room, wash-room, night-soil, morning chores. morning ablution, making fertilizer and so on.

People in different linguistic States use their own terms such as Helu, Kakkas, Sandas, Doddi, Paikhana, ..... Further more, the reference word of one person is unlikely to be meaningful to a person of a different language.


Judging from the response of people across India, Modi has inspired people. As the Sanskrit proverb says, yatha rajah, tatha prajah (however acts the top man, so do the people at lower levels)

This blog is a compendium of the reactions, elaboration of the challenges, the linkage of diseases with open toilets, the behavioral changes needed and success reports. The objective of this blog is to open up a forum where the thinking and the doing, as well as honest feedback and stumbling blocks to this nation building activity get reported; This is also a means of evoking new thinking.

 The subject had always been referred to in euphemistic or connotative words, but denotative words were a no-no, considered embarrassing and not in good style. In typical referral people talk about going to --: going to the can, du-doing, pooping, going to the office, going for a constitutional, regularity, motion, night soil, crap, shit/shitting, pee/peeing, taking a leak, output, morning ablution, human-manure/fertilizer, going with the water-pot, left-hand work or simply going. Nobody referred to it as defecation, excreta, and such other denotative words.

Not only did Modi spoke about it, but went on to announce how many million of these out-houses would be created through government funds. That was brazen disregard of the Indian norm of what a government should be concerned with. People were expecting announcements with respect to more job creation, inflation, agriculture, banking and so on.

Indians take their lead from charismatic leaders. Perhaps we are 'authoritarian' personalities, that require an inspiring leader. Perhaps we are not entrepreneurial and individualistic enough. Now that the Prime Minister has talked about it openly, there are reports in newspapers how bad the situation is, what the progress has been in building toilets,what the conservative attitudes have been, the resistance to change, and innovations in toilet design, and so forth.  This blog is an attempt to bring all of this in one place and encourage dialog and discussion about the issues around this aspect of sanitation in India.
 

Links

http://www.dasra.org/dasra http://indiasanitationportal.org/18564
http://gatesfoundation.isebox.net/water-sanitation-hygiene/reinvent-the-toilet-fair-india http://abettertoilet.org/delhi/
http://www.sulabhinternational.org
www.poo2loo.com/
https://twitter.com/poo2loohttps://www.facebook.com/poo2loo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0CMtwfNIa4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0CMtwfNIa4www.youtube.com/watch?v=_peUxE_BKcU

Nani (M.P.) bats for bio-toilets

• By Special Correspondent, www.thehindu.com
• January 13th, 2015

 

Special Arrangement MP Kesineni Nani addressing the participants of Youth Parliament, organised by ‘Vijayawada Needs U’, in the city on Saturday. 

Vijayawada MP Kesineni Srinivas (Nani) has said that he is intended to introduce bio-toilets using DRDO’s bio-digester technology.

At a meeting organised in connection with the first Youth Parliament, organised by Vijayawada Needs U, a city-based student organisation, the MP said: “I want to introduce at least 1,000 bio-toilets before my term ends.”

He was speaking at a meeting organised in connection with the first Youth Parliament, organised by Vijayawada Needs U, a city-based student organisation.

Admitting that populist schemes introduced by the TDP in its last tenure had failed to reach the grass roots level, which had kept the party out of power, he said: “This time, Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu ensured a good balance between the two important factors. A State should be investor-friendly while the needs of the sections in the lower strata of society should be given equal importance,” he said.

Referring to the poor sanitation of the residents living on the hill slopes in One Town area, he said that nearly 10,000 people were using a few community toilets and the sanitation of this area should be improved.

Speaking about Gollamandala in A. Kondur mandal of Krishna district, a remote village he has adopted, he said that efforts would be made to groom it into a model village in the country.

Municipalities help Vijayawada Railway Division in its cleanliness drive

By V. Raghavendra, www.thehindu.com                       January 13th, 2015

Vijayawada Railway Division officials sought the help of 25 municipalities in keeping its tracks and boundaries clean as part of the ongoing Clean India Mission (‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan) and all of them came forward to make workers available and also material to some extent. On its part, the Railway Division is pressing earth-movers and its own personnel into service for cleaning up the mess.

Some of the municipal commissioners have come for inspections on railway trolleys and seen for themselves what they could do to improve the conditions around stations and tracks, said Divisional Railway Manager Pradeep Kumar.

Addressing media persons here on Friday, Mr. Kumar said on-board house keeping was provided in seven pairs of trains that originate in the division at Vijayawada, Kakinada, Machilipatnam and Narsapur and bio-toilets were functional in 168 coaches in three originating trains (Machilipatnam - Secunderabad Express, Machilipatnam-Yeswanthpur Kondaveedu Express and Narsapur-Nagarsol Express. Construction of a bio-toilet was just finished at Ongole station and another one was planned for Machilipatnam.

Vijayawada and Guntakal stations which were Clean Train Stations were paid the attention they deserved. Supervisors were deputed to take care of cleanliness in all trains that originate in the division and pass-through trains at Vijayawada and Tenali where trains halt for 10 to 15 minutes. RALLY: Nearly 500 officers and staff would take out a rally from Electric Traction Training Centre at Satyanarayanapuram to the railway station as part of the cleanliness drive which is going on throughout the country on September 30.

Students test sanitation system in India using breathable fabric technology

Science Daily, January, 2015

Breathable fabric used in field test traps waste and allows only tiny water vapor molecules through.

 Credit: Evan Krape, University of Delaware

A team of researchers led by Steven K. Dentel, professor of civil and environmental engineering (University of Delaware), has been working for several years on a breathable fabric that can be used to line pit toilets and other basic sanitary facilities in developing nations.

Approximately 2.5 billion people around the world are still without adequate sanitation, which leads to water contamination responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. About a billion people still have to defecate in the open, without any privacy or sanitary facilities.

The fabric Dentel and his team are developing is similar to that used in sports jackets and raincoats; it only allows tiny water vapor molecules through.

Dentel realized this could be a valuable way to filter out liquid water from human waste, letting the pure water escape while retaining everything else. Sewage placed in a container of this fabric would become dehydrated and therefore less hospitable to bacteria and other disease-causing organisms.

Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the project has been in the works for some time. The lab results look promising, but must still be tested in the field.

On Dec. 28, a small group led by doctoral student Shray Saxena headed to India to begin the first field test of the new fabric.

"A lot of people in India right now don't have improved toilet systems," says Saxena. "Even in cities like Kanpur, which are really quite developed, people do not have these facilities available to them."

Because sanitation in these cities is often decentralized, an advantage of this disposal system is that it does not require connection to central water or sewage lines.

Families in two cities, Kanpur and Puri, are trying out the new "eco-vapor" toilet system, with sewage collected in 55-gallon drums lined with the breathable fabric, allowing water vapor to evaporate.

The group is observing how the fabric performs under varying conditions of heat and humidity, which affect the rate at which water diffuses through the membrane. If external humidity is high, the lined drums may fill up before enough of the water can evaporate.

The nongovernmental organization WaterAid India is partnering with the research group on site selection and implementation of the pilot project.

In addition to Saxena, the team that went to India included Paul Imhoff, professor of civil and environmental engineering, doctoral student Babak Ebraziakhshayesh and two undergraduate students, Kelsey McWilliams and Dianna Kitt.

---

Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by University of Delaware. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Open defecation-free country became national slogan in 2014

Press Trust of India@ibnlive.com Jan 01, 2015

New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government undertook a significant step in 2014 to make the country free from open defecation under an ambitious plan of around Rs 2 lakh crore.

The year also saw the government deciding to implement the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project for Low Income States (RWSSP-LIS) of Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh with World Bank assistance over a period of six years (from 2013-14 to 2019-20).

The project is aimed at providing improved piped water supply covering approximately 17,400 habitations in 2,150 gram panchayats in 33 districts of the four States.
Open defecation-free country became national slogan in 2014

The Swachh Bharat Mission aims at attaining a 100 per cent open defecation free India by 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

Wielding the broom himself, Mr. Modi launched 'Clean India' campaign on October 2 and was joined by Chief Ministers, lawmakers, prominent personalities from various fields.

The Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) aims at attaining a 100 per cent open defecation free India by 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

The main objective of the programme is to bring about an improvement in the general quality of life in the rural areas, by promoting cleanliness, hygiene and eliminating open defecation and accelerate sanitation coverage in rural areas.

The main activities under the mission are incentives for individual household latrines, construction of community sanitary complexes, solid and liquid waste management projects, information education and communication, capacity building, monitoring and evaluation.

Mr. Modi, while launching the programme, asserted that Swachh Bharat mission is "beyond politics" and inspired by "patriotism". He invoked Gandhi's vision of a "clean and developed" India as he formally kicked off the five-year-long campaign.

The tech-savvy Prime Minister even launched his own version of ALS ice bucket challenge, nominating nine eminent personalities including Sachin Tendulkar, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, industrialist Anil Ambani along with several actors like Salman Khan, Priyanka Chopra and Kamal Hassan to spread awareness on the issue and asked them to continue the chain.

The ministry also launched a nationwide real-time monitoring of use of toilets on Thursday. The monitoring system was unveiled to give a big push to Swachh Bharat Mission.

People across the country will be mobilised to check and verify the use of toilets in the rural areas through mobile phones, tablets or iPads and upload the same in case of any discrepancy on the ministry's website in tune with online citizen monitoring.

Earlier, the monitoring was done only about the construction of toilets, but now the actual use of toilets will be ascertained on a sustained basis.

According to a parliamentary panel report tabled in the Lok Sabha recently, the practice of open defecation in India is due to combination of factors, the most prominent of them being the traditional behavioural pattern and lack of awareness of people about the associated health hazards.

In its report on Drinking Water and Sanitation, the Standing Committee on Rural Development even noted the fact that sanitation is mainly a mindset issue based on socio-cultural issues and habit.

Automated, self cleaning e-Toilets for Tirupati

• By B.venkat Sandeep, www.thehindu.com
• January 4th, 2015

THE HINDU Workers giving finishing touch to e-toilets in front of the Tirupati Railway Station. Photo: K.V. Poornachandra Kumar 

 

Compact steel structures, currently under construction at three major locations of the temple city, seem to have sparked a sense of inquiry among denizens and devotees. Failing to blend in with the surroundings, these futuristic cabins have garnered a stream of curious onlookers, who have interrogated the workers repeatedly about its function. These are nothing but the state-of-the-art, fully automated e-Toilets, soon to be introduced by the Municipal Corporation of Tirupati (MCT).

These toilets, developed by a private company – Eram Scientific, will be set up at three arterial junctions in the city – two cabins each (for men and women) at Central Bus Station and near pilgrim amenities complex – Vishnu Nivasam i.e., opposite to Railway Parcel Office. The third one, comprising of a single cabin, will come up at Urban SP Office near NTR Circle.

Speaking to The Hindu, Municipal Engineer B. Chandrasekhar welcomed the introduction of automated toilets and explained about their functioning. The unit, which costs Rs.5.5 lakh, houses all the information about its usage, in local languages. It has exits and hooters to alert people outside in case of any emergency.

“People can use these toilets by inserting a nominal amount of Rs.2/5, which is yet to be finalised by the Municipal Corporation. Subsequently, the door is opened and occupancy of the cabin is displayed outside. After every five uses, it automatically flushes the floor and has tissues/napkins for the people using it,” he added.

Mr. Chandrasekhar said that the toilets would require less human intervention as inbuilt sensors monitor the situation of the cabins. “The corporation is building tanks at the respective facilities to address water shortage and the company’s service engineer would be training engineers and workers for six months,” he maintained.

The project was a result of an extensive survey conducted in the city and the officials are contemplating to introduce more units based on the feedback of present ones.

Now, a dedicated office to monitor Swachh Abhiyan

Staff Reporter The Hindu, January 3, 2015
 

Vew of the porta-cabin dedicated to the cleanliness campaign inside the Delhi BJP office in New Delhi. Photo: Sushil Kumar Verma

How the city gets cleaned under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet project – Swachh Bharat Abhiyan – will now be monitored from a porta-cabin at the Delhi BJP office on Pt. Pant Marg. The office which has been set up under a chairman will create awareness of the cleanliness drive by involving social wings in the Capital.

According to Satish Garg, chairman of the committee, the cleanliness drive is “not a political but a social movement” which he says is articulated in the pledge that was administered by Mr. Modi when he launched the event on October 2. 

The committee has also prepared a Power-point presentation that will soon be uploaded on the Delhi BJP website which will explain to people how to make this campaign effective. 

Senior leaders and former legislators have also been appointed to monitor the functioning of different civic bodies. Kulwant Rana, former BJP MLA from Rithala, will monitor North Delhi; Manoj Shokeen will oversee activities in East Delhi while Subash Sachdeva will monitor South Delhi. Sources say the BJP is working towards setting right the people’s perception of the party-run civic bodies that have been seen as failing in their duty to clean up the city. This could also involve increasing manpower to clean Delhi, he said.

Times of India Survey on Swatch Bharat project

• timesofindia.indiatimes.com
• January 1st, 2015

NEW DELHI: In a survey ​conducted exclusively for TOI by IPSOS in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad, PM Narendra Modi's big cleanliness scheme has caught the nation's imagination.

Of all the Modi government initiatives in its first seven months in office, the Swachh Bharat campaign is most appreciated by the metropolitan middle class.

Asked which initiative they liked most, 56% respondents picked the cleanliness drive, 18% said the foreign policy initiatives were the best thing and 15% chose Jan Dhan Yojana, the financial inclusion scheme.

Narendra Modi participates in the 'Swachh Bharat Campaign' at Assi Ghat in Varanasi. (PTI photo)
The survey polled a little over 1,200 men and women aged 18 and above. The purposive sample was divided equally between men and women and between the cities.

The age groups 18-29, 30-45 and 45-plus were equally represented in the sample as were socio-economic groups SEC A1, A2, B1 and B2. The fieldwork, in the form of face-to-face interviews, was done on December 27 and 28.

Coimbatore installs biogas plant

A Subburaj, TNN,  Dec 31, 2014


COIMBATORE: Kurudampalayam Panchayat shows the way in solid waste management by installing a bio-methanisation plant with the help of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). The plant installed at a cost of 30lakh generates four cylinders of gas per day which is supplied to the community hall built by the panchayat to fuel stoves. More than 250 families can use the stove free of cost to cook food on rotation basis.

"Trial runs are going on and the inauguration will be conducted on January 14, 2015. We will keep 20 fuel stoves at the community hall and families from Nehru Colony can cook their food using the stoves. We will issue tokens to each family based on which they could use the community hall for cooking on rotation basis. The project has been funded by the district rural development agencies (DRDA)," said D Ravi, president, Kurudampalayam village panchayat.

To go or not to go: a challenge in the great outdoors

By Malavika, www.thehindu.com  December 20th, 2014 

 

Women working outdoors in a male-dominated country give the concept of sanitation a very personal twist. Village women working in the fields are at least in a familiar environment, which even then may have a million hidden dangers. But for me, most of my women friends, and all those other women in various sectors who spend long hours on the road or in villages, fields and forest lands, finding a secluded, safe, spot to commune with nature, is an art.

Well, if the day is something like this — ‘heading to the field for two days, six-hour drive to reach the village, three hours in village plus neighbourhood, three-hour drive to rest house, one-hour meeting at rest house’ — how it translates in one’s head is: ‘hell, six-hour drive — will need to find two p-spots; better check with Meeta, she’d gone on that drive last time, she’ll be able to suggest something. Need some background on the village meeting. Hope there are trees en route. Hope it’s a real NBA village, else, hope the harvest isn’t in yet.’

Women definitely multi-think, no choice there. On regular routes one can even mark safe spots, although no spot is ever really safe, as tales of encounters with cattle and curious goats, or the occasional nettle plant, abound.

A multitude of women friends and colleagues — development workers, faculty, students and government officials who work in the field — have perfected the art of not drinking any liquids for up to 12 hours before the trip, and not needing the loo at all. Personally, I don’t think that works, and suspect it promotes UTIs. But if you’re the kind who says, what the hell, I need my fluids and I will go where I need, then one pretty much falls into the tiny category of women who are ostracised even by other women in the group. The hierarchy of ‘those who dare to go’ vs ‘those who hold it’ is subtle but very real. The general feeling is that the one who ‘goes’ has a thicker skin and an unlady-like gung-ho attitude. Thankfully, many men with whom one works do not melt with embarrassment if one needs to stop the car, and I’ve had a few sweet enough to mention wife and daughters and the problems of long rides — bless them.

On the other hand, there are always a few who turned away and died small deaths when one suggested finding a safe nook. The plus is that over the years, long drives on major routes have become much easier — even in northern India, where loos are usually terribly maintained.

Dhabas, in particular, have over the past few years woken up to the particular needs of women travellers, and have progressed from a corner of a field curtained off by filthy rags hanging a foot off the ground, to relatively clean, not-so-smelly toilets.

But in many regions there continues to be no chance of either cover or vegetation. Some areas have their unique characteristics. Once, a group of us women, working on a book, met up in Mongolia. The hosts took us for a day trip to a village, a few hours drive out of Ulan Bator. I fell deeply in love with the country, it’s so amazingly beautiful and full of beautiful people. But there is this thing about it — it’s the flattest piece of land one has ever seen. It’s flat, flat, flat, like a tabletop, with a foot-high, thin grass cover in late summers. It was inevitable that sooner or later someone had to go. The problem was, there was no cover, or camouflage, and we were in a bus on that tabletop.

That’s when, following an intensely hilarious discussion we figured out why traditionally, in most regions, women wear large, long skirt-based dresses — Mongolia, China, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Egypt. Skirts were the way to go. Even in Europe, it used to be skirts. Women could have only begun wearing trousers after sanitation systems came into being. And we all wore trousers, or some version thereof, at that point. The men at the meeting never did quite figure out why the women bonded so strongly during that visit.

Easy does it

Thankfully, things have been getting easier, Swachh Bharat or not. Hopefully our daughters, when they are travelling alone in buses in the remote corners of the country, or trekking across the deserts of Rajasthan as we did, will find safe corners when they need them. And, like us, they find men and women who are of the creed who understand and hold guard while they ‘go’. I hope my son grows up to be genuinely understanding of the problems a woman friend might face in the great outdoors. A helpful taxi driver, a decent colleague — people simply being nice makes life so much easier. Of course, they could get too nice too.

Years ago just after my marriage, on a trip through Rajasthan with my husband and a bunch of his very ‘happy’ all-male friends in a very crowded Maruti 800 the inevitable moment came. An animated discussion ensued, followed by the car screeching to a halt by the roadside. I had to tell the driver (and obviously everyone else too) that some ‘cover’, as in, roadside vegetation, would be required, which in Rajasthan, is not the simplest thing.

A comical 20 minutes followed, with heads sticking out of windows and guys pointing out various completely unsuitable ‘cover’, from the ubiquitous tall and thin eucalyptus that uselessly line some roads, to thorny bushes and garden hedges, beyond which there were, obviously, gardens and houses and people. Helpful comments of ‘just go, we aren’t watching’ didn’t work then, though they might now. With age, some things in life really do become so much easier. kafalpaako@gmail.com

Trash bins runneth over

By Aloysius Xavier Lopez, www.thehindu.com   December 18th, 2014

 Photo: B. Jothi Ramalingam

 

The Hindu Residents cite the government’s failure in implementing legal provisions to govern solid waste management and the delay in identifying alternative sites to existing dumping grounds as the primary reasons for the problems. 

 

The Hindu. Overflowing garbage bins are a common sight in Sowcarpet. Photo: Aswin Kumar

Friends of Chennai, a social initiative, was The Hindu’s gift to the city on its 375th birthday. FoC seeks to serve as a vehicle for residents’ hopes and concerns about the city. Today’s column takes a look at the garbage woes that
Residents of the city seem to have given up their war against problems caused by garbage, and are now taking to social media to vent their displeasure.

They cite the government’s failure in implementing legal provisions to govern solid waste management and the delay in identifying alternative sites to existing dumping grounds as the primary reasons for the problems.

Sharing their experiences through Friends of Chennai, readers also cite the absence of a comprehensive study on solid waste management and frequent changes in policy decisions for the garbage woes having assumed menacing proportions.

“Our locality suffers from loads of problems relating to garbage and water logging,” says Amit Jain of Sowcarpet, adding that the Chennai Corporation should clean streets periodically.

Councillor D. Subash Chandra Bose, of the opposition party DMK, says bins are yet to be procured for most wards in north Chennai. “Most streets do not have bins, and garbage trucks do not arrive on time,” he says.

Sarfaraz H., another resident, says, “Garbage is the biggest problem and water logging increases when garbage blocks drains.”

Kodungaiyur resident Sri Vivek says pollution from the dumping yard bothers the locality. “From a small dumping site, Kodungaiyur has grown rapidly over the last two decades. We get garbage from several Corporation zones. Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board records indicate the yard is illegal, has no authorisation from environmental regulators, and is in violation of the Municipal Solid Waste (Management & Handling) Rules, 2000,” he says.

“The landfill site is near habitation clusters, forest areas and water bodies. Kodungaiyur is a wetland and around one lakh people live here,” says Mr. Vivek. He stresses the need for development-free buffer zones around landfill sites.

Arvind Kumar Sethuraman, another resident, points out that huge piles of garbage are dumped in front of places of cultural and religious importance. Often, garbage is not collected from bins placed near Shankara Matham on Mayor Chittibabu Street in Triplicane, he says.

Following complaints from residents, the Chennai Corporation is planning to send one official to each ward to screen localities with garbage issues, on a daily basis. The officials will start work next week and will be held responsible for any problems.

Norway to take up 'Clean India' campaign in Varanasi

 

ANI News Dec. 16, 2014

Varanasi, Dec. 14 : Norway's Ambassador to India, Eivind S. Homme, met Varanasi Mayor Ram Gopal Mohale here to take forward Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Swacch Bharat Abhiyan' in the city.

Mohale said that Norway-based telecommunications company Uninor and its India's subsidiary will help civic agencies in Varanasi to clean the city as well as the river Ganges.
"Norwegian Ambassador has said that both the countries will cooperate in making Varanasi more beautiful and clean. He said he would take Varanasi's culture to Norway," said Mohale.

Meanwhile, the Norwegian envoy said that it would be a learning experience for him.
"We have companies who very much are in this area how to clean water and even also make energy of it at the same time. So I think I am here in the learning expedition to hear more how we can have contacts and how we can work together. I am also here to learn more about the activities of the company Uninor, which is one of our most reputable companies. It was also very active in India," he said.

The 'Swachh Bharat Abhiyan' was launched nationwide to focus on sanitation, hygiene and waste management. It encourages people to sweep, remove garbage, debris and unauthorized encroachments from roads, markets and residential places. The 'Swachh Bharat Abhiyan' aims at making India a clean country by 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. 

Amid swachhata abhiyan, manual scavenging thrives

Sandeep Joshi, the Hindu, Lucknow, December 14, 2014
 

Manual scavengers from Sulabh International cleaning toilets at Saadatganj in Lucknow. Photo: Rajeev Bhatt

Authorities are in denial, says activist who has documented workers who still clean homes with dry toilets

Over a year ago when Parliament passed a stringent anti-manual scavenging legislation, the husband-wife duo of Krishna and Ratna had hoped that government help would come and they would be able to shun the “horrific” job of cleaning night soil with their hands.

But at a time when the Centre and the State governments are engaged in carrying out their own versions of swachhata abhiyan (cleanliness drive), every day at the strike of dawn the couple, with their little girl child, go from one home to another with a basket and a broom cleaning dry toilets in the bylanes right in the heart of the state capital. 

Krishna and Ratna are not the only ones engaged in manual scavenging. Dry toilets exist in around 1,000 homes in at least a dozen localities in the older part of the city. This is despite the fact that forcing people to clean dry toilets can attract stringent punishment, including up to five years of imprisonment. 

Though the district authorities officially “liberated” 57 manual scavengers last year, NGOs working in this area claim that there are still over 125 people engaged in cleaning dry toilets in the city.

“Each person cleans at least 25 – 30 homes...We have been doing this for the past 10 – 15 years. Last year, after the stricter anti-manual scavenging law was passed, a lot of buzz was created by local authorities and surveys were done, but nothing changed for us,” says Mr. Krishna, a worker at Sadatganj area. Asked why he continued to do the cleaning although he took up other odd jobs during the day, he explains: “It is about two hours of early morning work every day. I make Rs.3,000 per month...I want to quit this job but house owners whom we have been serving for decades and with whom we have developed close ties, plead with us not to quit. I took over this job from my parents, but I would not pass it on to my kids.” 

The dilemma is the same for his other colleagues, be it Sanjay and his wife Sunita or high-school educated Rohit who took over the work from his parents. Enter the narrow streets of Billozpura, Hussainabad, Bhadeva, Ghanta Gharaiya, Kachcha Bagh, Lakadmandi, Tudiaganj, Asharfabad, Victoriaganj, Shahganj, Nakkhas and Akbari Gate, and you will find people carrying baskets and brooms cleaning dry toilets. 

Ajay, the son of a former manual scavenger who now works as a social activist, asks what one could do when the authorities responsible for removing the social evil live in denial. “I have approached every authority in the state, right up to the Chief Minister, but no one is ready to listen,” he rues as he shows elaborate document with data on manual scavengers as well the numbers of homes where dry toilets still exist. 

“Last year, when the civic authorities conducted a survey of the city to identify manual scavengers, our team went along to identify them and also identifying homes with dry toilets. 

But authorities refused to believe our figures and helped only around 50 people against the real figure of over 150 and did nothing to demolish those dry toilets. So the problem remains,” Mr. Ajay adds.

Triplicane group revisits old initiative, lifts brooms

• By Liffy Thomas, www.thehindu.com  Dec 13, 2014

The Hindu Students and residents take a rally to create awareness about the campaign Photo: Special Arangement

The Hindu Pick up the broom: The pilot launch of the programme would be extended to other streets. Photo: Special Arangement

Srinivas Young Men’s Association is revisiting the idea that led to its formation thirty seven years ago. The group was formed to promote and maintain a clean environment in the neighbourhood. Last Sunday, it re-launched this initiative in Triplicane. “In 1977, SYMA was born to keep the area clean. We started by cleaning the Parthasarathy Swamy Temple Tank which was in a bad state. We later extended our activities to sweep the streets during weekends,” recalls T. J. Ramani, one of the founders of the Association, adding, “We were all young with so much of enthusiasm.” This campaign however fizzled out after SYMA started venturing into new projects. 

With the ‘Clean India’ campaign gaining ground in various neighbourhoods and many devotees complaining about the poor civic condition around the Parthasarathy Swamy Temple, it has been re-launched. Last week, as part of the pilot project under the ‘Clean Triplicane’ campaign, three streets around the Parthasarathy Swamy Temple — T.P. Koil, South Mada and Peyalwar Street — were spruced up.

This initiative would be extended to the other streets in the neighbourhood in the coming months. Three people have been hired exclusively for the purpose. SYMA is spending around Rs. 20,000 a month and plans to find more sponsors to fund the campaign.

“Each of the streets is divided into blocks and a representative will coordinate cleaning work around his block. He or she would be responsible for motivating more residents to help in the initiative,” says R. Sanjeevi, one of the secretaries. A group of youngsters have volunteered to carry out cleaning work every Sunday from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m.

Cattle menace is a major issue in Triplicane. By re-launching the campaign, members hope to find a solution to this long-standing issue too.

“All of us may not be directly involved in cleaning the street as in the early days. The larger goal is to help more people come forward and take up some role. It could even be helping a conservancy staff or overseeing cleaning work at a street,” says Sanjeevi. To join the campaign, call Sanjeevi at 99400 86026 or visit www.syma.in

Shit, it's profitable

By Kundan Pandey  Down to Earth,  Nov 30, 2014

Bengaluru farmers have revived the practice of using human excreta as manure. This has created an informal economy that is benefiting many.

A honey-sucker truck dumps excreta inside a pit in a farmland in Bengaluru

Farmer Raj Anna has been making unprecedented profits from his farmland since the past few years. The 42-year-old earns more than Rs 15 lakh a year. Ask him how he manages such a handsome income and he replies—through human excreta. Anna is one of the 1,000-odd farmers in Bengaluru who have revived the lost practice of using human excreta as manure.

“Our ancestors used human excreta in farmlands. In fact, as a child, I saw my father design a latrine using a net of wood. In summers, he would cover the latrine with husk. Later, he would use the waste in the farm,” says Anna, adding that it was a natural process in the earlier days as people would defecate in farms. “With the popularity of modern-day latrines this practice has reduced in the past few decades,” he points out.

Anna, who was the first farmer in Bengaluru’s Veer Sagara suburb to start using human waste as manure, explains that the idea came to him one day when he saw a honey-sucker truck—a specialised vehicle used for extracting and transporting waste—dumping human excreta in a fallow piece of land. “Initially, I would wait for the trucks to dump the waste in fallow land and then transport it to my farmland. Later, I dug a big pit and asked the drivers to directly dump the waste on my land,” he says. According to him, it is a win-win situation for all, with him getting free manure and the trucks getting a free space to dump the waste. “In a few months, I started getting so much waste that I began selling it to other farmers,” adds Anna. 

Today, this has started an informal trade in Bengaluru which is benefiting the farmers, owner of honey-suckers and citizens who are not connected to the sewerage system. The informal sector today employs close to 200,000 people and is worth Rs 75 crore.

A win-win situation

Bengaluru has a population of 8.5 million, as per the 2011 Census. Ideally, the Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) should take care of sewage treatment and disposal. But the reality is that just 40 per cent of the city is connected to the sewage network, according to the Comptroller and Auditor General report 2011. The rest of the city, or 5.1 million people, have on-site sanitation with off-site disposal, or are forced to defecate in the open, says a paper prepared by the International Water and Sanitation Centre in 2012.

Bengaluru-based engineer S Vishwanath, who coauthored the paper, says the huge population in the country not connected with the sewage system has to find its own way to handle the waste. This is the basis of the new informal economy that is emerging in the city. The areas that do not have a sewerage connection have septic tanks and rely on private honey-sucker operators to empty the tanks. The truck operators, who earlier struggled to find wasteland to dump the excreta, now have free space in farmlands.

Farmers in Bengaluru are using human excreta as manure to grow high-quality grass (Photographs: Kundan Pandey)

Nageshwar Rao, who owns eight honey-sucker trucks, admits competition has increased in his business after farmers started taking the waste. “Earlier, farmers were approaching vehicle owners and even giving money to have the sludge dumped into their fields. Now, there is much competition in the market. We approach the farmers to take the sludge to their fields,” says Rao.

He reveals that earlier he used to charge at least Rs 1,500 to clean one pit, but the cost has come down because of increased competition. “We at times are forced to offer services at as low as Rs 700,” he says. While there is no official figure available, operators claim that at least 500 honey-sucker trucks are active in the city.

This boom is also helping the manufacturers of honey-sucker trucks, who say they are finding it difficult to meet the surge in demand. “We take 20 days to make a honey-sucker truck with the capacity of 4,000 litres. It costs the customer Rs 2.5 lakh. But now many people are converting regular tankers into honey-suckers for gathering and carrying waste,” says Doreswami, who owns one of the two major honey-sucker manufacturing garages in the city.

Profits for all The informal sector today employs close to 200,000 people and is worth Rs 75 crore Farmers More than 1,000 farmers on the outskirts of Bengaluru are using human waste as manure. They claim the shift has increased their produce and reduced their dependency on fertilisers Colonies without sewerage line Almost 5.1 million people are not connected to the sewage network in Bengaluru. They now pay less to get their septic tanks cleaned by honey-sucker trucks Honey-sucker truck operators The number of honey-sucker truck operators has shot up after farmers started taking human excreta from them. Many are also converting regular trucks into honey-suckers now Honey-sucker manufacturers Manufacturers in Bengaluru say people are now converting their regular trucks into honey-suckers because of the growing demand

The farmers who have taken to the practice say it has benefited them in more ways than one. For starters, their dependency on fertilisers has gone down. They are also saved from the side-effects of chemical fertilisers. As a result, Anna, who owns 2.5 hectares, now farms on an additional 2.5 hectares he has taken on lease. “I recently bought a crop cutter worth Rs 4 lakh and plan to take more farmland on lease,” he adds.

“Human excreta contains nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which is good for plants,” says C A Srinivasamurhty, professor and head of the soil science and agricultural chemistry department at the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bengaluru.

In fact, the 2012 paper carried a case study on the annual value of human excreta in the African nation of Niger. It shows that average excreta produced per family per year in Niger is equivalent to approximately 90 kg of chemical fertiliser, which is well beyond the reach of any small farmer. The situation will not be very different in India. (Estimate for India)

A health hazard

While the people are happy with the arrangement, experts warn that dealing with human waste poses some health concerns as well. For instance, it can lead to cholera, diarrhoea and several other infections.

Vishwanath also points out that using human excreta directly on farmland increases the chances of groundwater contamination. “Bengaluru’s water level is low, which reduces the risk of groundwater contamination,” he adds. Experts believe that the new informal economy that is picking up in Bengaluru offers a viable method to reuse human waste. They suggest government intervention to regularise the system. “The country is struggling with its waste and this offers a solution. The only problem with the model is that it is unregulated. If monitored properly, this locally developed model can play a significant role in handling human waste,” says Vishwanath.