The Swachh Bharat Mission needs to address three major challenges to realize the goal of making India Open Defecation Free.
The Budget 2018 was fourth since Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) was launched. With barely a year to go for 2 October 2019, the target given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make India Open Defecation Free (ODF), the expectations have been high around increased allocations for the Mission. Notably, many states including laggards like Uttar Pradesh have advanced the deadline to 2018. The allocations for the same have seen steady increase over the last three years as well. However, surprisingly the total allocation for the SBM- Rural and Urban is ₹17,843 crore with SBM (R) at ₹15,343 crore and SBM (U) at ₹2,500 crore in 2018-19 (BE). As budget analysts have already pointed out, this is slightly lower than the previous year’s allocation of ₹19,248 crore in 2017-18 (RE).
The SBM officially has made great strides with 76.6 percent of rural population being covered. 10 states, 304 districts and 3 lakh villages have been declared ODF as per the Management Information System (MIS) data reported by the Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation, Government of India. Overall, when the Mission was launched, the government had given itself a target of 11 crore individual household toilets in the rural areas and 1 crore in the urban areas. This year, the government has set itself the target of 1.88 crores in the rural areas alone. Itaims to reduce the current status of 20 per cent open defecation to 10 per cent by the end of the year. These targets, however, were based on 2012-13 baseline surveys which itself were deemed as problematic, since they didn’t take into account what were termed as ‘missing’ or ‘defunct’ toilets, which mostly belonged to those who were already on the margins. Additionally, since then families have split, internal migrations have happened on a large scale, making the target as a constantly moving one.
Challenges to tackle
There are three major challenges staring at the Mission even as it is busy increasing the number of constructed toilets. The first challenge, according to a recent WaterAid ground survey of 636 gram panchayats and six cities across 10 states, is that the households that include people with disability, elderly, women-headed or landless were at least 10 percent behind the general populace in terms of access to toilets. This itself means that the question of equity remains a prime concern even as the Mission juggernaut rolls on. The Mission does need to specifically focus on those who are getting left behind especially in those areas which are already declared ODF.
The second issue is that even as toilets are being constructed, their usage remains suspect. While the Information Education and Communication (IEC) budget for the same was reduced to 8 per cent from the earlier 15 per cent in the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, the current data tells us that many states are not going beyond 1-2 percent in spending this budget. This is because their entire concentration is on meeting the impending deadline. While, the states which have done better like Kerala and Sikkim, have shown that it is the pivot of behaviour change and spending on IEC that needs to spearhead this entire movement if the Mission has to succeed.
Many of the places, which face severe water crisis, have been reporting constant slippage from the ODF status
The third question is that as the country is racing towards its deadline, the second generational problems are beginning to stare at its face. Hence, there is now an urgent need to focus on Solid Liquid Waste Management (SLWM). World Bank’s recent loan of 1.5 billion USD has an element built around SLWM to incentivise those states who work towards sustainability. However, even in the rural areas where twin leach pit technology was seen as the panacea of managing faecal sludge, there seems to be an increasing trend to build single pits or septic tanks (often faulty, as another of WaterAid’ study has shown recently). This means that unless there is a rapid investment in not just innovative technology but also in community-based management systems, we may be facing another round of potential health hazards.
On the question of water
For National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP), the allocation dropped marginally from ₹7,050 crore in 2017-18 (RE) to ₹7,000 crore in 2018-19 (BE). This too has been very consistent with the last three years’ trends, where an increase in sanitation has seen an almost concomitant decrease in allocations for water. This is paradoxical since government by its own accord had advanced its deadline for reaching piped water supply to every household by 2022. With the current rural coverage of just about 15 percent, this indeed sounds paradoxical. With the decreased allocations, the focus of NRDWP has moved to addressing water quality issues and to some extent addressing what it calls ‘partially covered’ habitations with water supply. Moreover, the government has recently announced that those gram panchayats achieving ODF status would be given priority in allocation of piped water supply. While, this may sound like a good way to incentivise the Swachh Bharat Mission, in practice, this may be counterproductive. Many of the places, which face severe water crisis, have been reporting constant slippage from the ODF status or have been unable to reach that state in the first place. A saner way should be to prioritise those locations, which do face water scarcity.
Its biggest refuge comes from the financial devolution to states through 14th Finance Commission recommendations, which has given, increased financial share to gram panchayats. Many states like Odisha have issued guidelines that 30 percent of the allocation should be utilised on creating water infrastructure while money for operation and maintenance (O&M) could be collected from the users. While, it is certainly a matter of hope that there is increased amount of money available at the local level, it is evident from the ground that panchayats need huge amount of focus in their own capacity building to draft Gram Panchayat Development Plans and to be able to oversee their implementation satisfactorily. Moreover, the strategy of user fees for O&M has been tried earlier but found wanting. Most crucially, there are challenges either around trained human resource skills or around source sustainability in an overall environment of administrative inefficiency. Without looking at this triad, even increase in money at the local level may prove insufficient.
In urban water and sanitation, the allocations for Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) have increased from ₹4,998 crore in 2017-18 (RE) to ₹6,000 crore in 2018-19 (BE). In his Budget speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, ‘State level plans of ₹77,640 crore for 500 cities have been approved. Water supply contracts for 494 projects worth ₹19,428 crore and sewerage work contract for 272 projects costing ₹12,429 crore has been awarded”. The problem for the poor, particularly those living in slums has to be seen within the overall umbrella of housing and tenurial rights. Merely increasing allocations for tanker-based water supply systems or community toilets, which have proven to be second-rate solutions for second-rate citizens, would be setting us up for another round of failure. The critical part beyond the finances is whether a governance system, which centres poor at the heart of planning and management through their active participation, is being institutionalised. And we are yet to see any large-scale change in this regard.
