As part of its cleanliness drive, the Centre will soon launch a nationwide programme for real-time monitoring of use of toilets. This would mean officials across the country will be mobilised to check and verify the use of toilets in the rural areas through mobile phones, tablets or I-Pads and upload the same to see if there was 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. The Monitoring System will be unveiled to give a big push to Swachchh Bharat Mission, which aims at attaining a 100% Open Defecation Free India by 2019.Besides, in order to implement the Swachchh Bharat Mission in a more aggressive way, the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation is being strengthened. Around two dozen additional staff including two Joint Secretaries, four Directors and their subordinate staff will soon be appointed for effective implementation and monitoring of Swachchh Bharat goals. An Expert Committee will also be set up to examine the Innovative Technologies for toilets and solid and liquid waste management. A national telephonic helpline will also be installed for Rural Water Supply and Sanitation.
The campaign also has special focus in rural areas to bring improvement in the general quality of life there; accelerate sanitation coverage in rural areas. Besides, communities will be motivated and Panchayati Raj Institutions will promote sustainable sanitation facilities through awareness creation and health education. Cost effective and appropriate technologies for ecologically safe and sustainable sanitation will also be encouraged while community managed environmental sanitation systems will be developed focusing on solid and liquid waste management for overall cleanliness in the rural areas.
The Central Government has taken some major initiatives recently to push its total sanitation programme. These include recording progress under the Swachchh Bharat Mission (Gramin) by uploading names of individual beneficiaries, photos of toilets constructed. Key resource centres will be identified for carrying out training on sanitation besides having a media campaign at national and state levels.
According to a World Bank study, India’s shortage of toilets costs the country more than $50 billion a year, mostly through premature deaths and hygiene-related diseases. India suffers a greater cost than other Asian countries from the poor collection of human excreta, the study found. About 626 million Indians defecate in the open compared with 14 million in China, the World Health Organisation said in its 2012 report.
Since taking office in May, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeatedly lamented the poor State of sanitation and public cleanliness in India while vowing to solve the problems within the next five years. The Centre has doubled spending on a toilet building programme and requested financial donations from some of the country’s largest companies to help.
Kerala, with about 95% coverage, is a state that has the highest level of households having access to toilets, followed by Himachal Pradesh (86%) and Sikkim (81.5%). Bihar (21.4%) has the lowest level of households having access to toilets along with Jammu and Kashmir (25.3%) and Madhya Pradesh (26%). After launch of Swachchh Bharat Mission (Gramin) on October 2, 2014 as per Government claims 5,03142 individual household toilets have been constructed.