SANITATION – BACKGROUND
Sanitation refers to the provision of facilities for the safe disposal of human waste. Unlike drinking water, sanitation has often been seen as the “orphan” MDG, with very little money and political will committed to it. According to the MDG Report, India stands second amongst the worst places for sanitation after China, with half of India’s population having absolutely zero access to sanitation. The MDG goal of halving, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation, looks rather unachievable. Even if this highly unrealistic goal is met, it is estimated that 500 million people in India will still have no access to sanitation.[1]
The Government of India launched the National Urban Sanitation Policy (NUSP) in 2008 to achieve 100 per cent sanitation coverage in Indian cities, through methods that encourage community participation. In this regard, the Ministry of Urban Development also allotted Rs. 13 crore to support cities to prepare their City Sanitation Plans (CSPs), in which cities are supposed to identify sanitation needs and make commitments to improvements. A district level study was undertaken to rate the level of sanitation against 19 broad parameters called the “urban sanitation indicators.”
As per these ratings, none of the cities in India, including Chennai, are close to achieving complete sanitization. Chennai, in fact, has been rated as a city that needs considerable improvement in its sanitary conditions, and received a score of just 53 out of 100 on these ratings. The 2001 Census, which likely undercounted poor households, found that 10% of all recorded households did not have access to a latrine facility within the house. A survey published by the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board in 2005 of 242 undeclared slums in the city revealed that only 29% of residents in these slums had access to individual toilets or pit latrines, while 48% depended on public toilets and 22% used other means, including open defecation.
These numbers make a good case for increasing access to sanitation in the city, but they understate the case for public toilets. Public toilets are not the ideal means of accessing sanitation, but for women city residents, public toilets in public places like market and recreational areas and bus stops can be argued to be as integral a public good as roads, sidewalks, buses and street lights. For many women workers in the informal sector, such as construction workers, street vendors, and sanitation workers, public toilets are their primary means of accessing sanitation at the workplace.
[1] WaterAid India Report, 2007