Taking the historical quote of Mahatma Gandhi “Sanitation is more important than independence”, the new ruler of India in 2014 thought of making ‘sanitation’ a popular word among the millions of Indians.
Sanitation, for the first time got so much of attention in India, which has been an issue since pre-independence.
On October 2, 2014 (145th birthday of Mahatma Gandhi), Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared ‘Swachh Bharat Mission’ (SBM) to make India clean by October 2, 2019 (150th birthday of Mahatma Gandhi).
Increasing political will in India could even be able to make ‘sanitation drive of India’ a topic of discussion across the globe.
The most powerful speech of the nation – ‘Republic Day Speech’ also was ornamental with the word ‘sanitation’. To cope with the increasing political will and popularisation of sanitation drive, corporates too started putting money into making India clean.
Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) directly affects human health and have far-reaching consequences when ignored. India continues to lag behind on WASH indicators despite being one of the fastest growing economies in the world.
More than half of the period passed in between from a targeted five years to make the nation clean. looking back to October 2, 2014 and looking ahead to October 2, 2019, a few questions appear in the mind.
Are we moving in the right directionIJ With the passing 50 per cent of targeted time i.e. two and a half years of five years target, are we able to clean 50 per cent of our countryIJ Is the implementation at par with the plan to meet the target, which could not be achieved for more than half a centuryIJ Most importantly, are we just confined to creating individual household toilets or we are able to handle managing the waste generated across, which is also a great component of SBMIJ
Though the construction of individual household toilet has gained the momentum like never before and villages after villages, gram panchayats after gram panchayats, blocks after blocks, districts after districts and even States are getting the tag of open defecation free, making the country ‘Swachh’ (clean) has miles to go. Though toilet is one of the strongest pillars of SBM, solid and liquid waste management also stands equally important under the same SBM.
Solid and liquid Waste Management (SlWM), which means collection, transportation, processing, recycling, treatment, and disposal of waste material in a specific manner, is one of the key components of Swachh Bharat Mission-Grameen (SBM-G), launched with the objective of bringing improvement in cleanliness, hygiene and the general quality of life in rural areas.
In rural areas, examples of solid waste include wastes from kitchen, gardens, cattle sheds, agriculture, and materials such as metal, paper, plastic, cloth, and so on. They are organic and inorganic materials with no remaining economic value to the owner; produced by households, commercial and industrial establishments.
But dealing with the wastes generated in the rural areas is not a Herculean task. Most household waste in rural areas is organic, with little inorganic material, and is non-toxic. Because of its environment-friendliness, composting is a highly suitable method for waste management in rural areas. And most importantly, this is not a new concept. Most of the households in rural areas were practising the same for generating compost to meet cultivation requirement traditionally. In the name of increasing agricultural productivity, by introduction of fertilisers has somehow overruled the traditional practices of composting. Only thing is to revive the same with true spirit, which can help in making our environment healthy.
When water is used once and is no longer fit for human consumption or any other use, it is considered as liquid waste. Wastewater can be subcategorised as industrial and domestic: (a) Industrial wastewater is generated by manufacturing processes and is difficult to treat, (b) Domestic wastewater includes water discharged from homes, commercial complexes, hotels, and educational institutions. Managing water coming out of kitchen can be efficiently used in kitchen gardens. Again, this is not a new concept and traditionally people were doing the same in rural areas. Only thing is to revive the same with true spirit, which can help in making our environment healthy.
However, SBM focuses on generating awareness and providing community managed sanitation systems. To implement SlWM initiatives economically and efficiently, ownership at grass root level and community involvement at all stages is critical.
Besides, considering the presence of Self-Help Groups (SHGs) across the corners, the waste management can be linked with those groups as income generation programmes. There are many instances, where models are being demonstrated as ‘Best out of waste’, establishing the fact that waste can also be managed for direct economic returns.
Thus, we have to focus on educating the community and our interventions of informing and educating community should focus on SlWM to create demand for a sustainable system. This must lead to setting up systems for waste disposal in such a way that it has tangible impact on the population. The community as well as gram panchayat (GP) has to be encouraged to come forward and demand such a system, which they can subsequently operate and maintain.
little waste generated by each of the individual/ family – be it liquid or solid – is a greater challenge in making our village to nation clean. Focus should be on construction and use of toilet. So also focus has to be on dealing with solid and liquid waste to keep our environment clean. Otherwise, the SBM will end like ‘operation successful, but the patient dead’.
(The author works with WaterAid India, Bhubaneswar. Views expressed are personal)