Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) was implemented in 1999 by the Government of India to achieve universal rural sanitation coverage by 2012. The community-led, demand-driven approach of this programme seeks to achieve not only 100 percent open defecation free communities but also broader environmental sanitation objectives such as promotion of improved hygiene behaviors and solid/liquid waste management.

After more than a decade of its implementation, a report by Water and Sanitation Program assesses and analyses this flagship programme on the basis of primary and secondary data on the TSC to arrive at an understanding of the processes, outputs and outcomes at a national level and across the states. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights of the report.

Figure 1 indicates the progress made by TSC so far. TSC is currently being implemented at scale in 606 districts of 30 states/Union Territories (UTs). After sluggish progress in the 80s and 90s, rural sanitation coverage (individual household latrines) nearly tripled from 22 per cent in 2001 to 65 per cent in 2010. These are the same years when TSC has been in operation across all states in India.

Figure 1: Rural Sanitation Coverage in India

However, national performance aggregates conceal significant disparities among states and districts when it comes to the achievement of TSC goals. The following figure speaks for itself:

Figure 2: How are States Performing on the Total Sanitation Campaign?

While the rating for the worse performing state is as low as 15 per cent DN Haveli, it is 88 per cent for the best performing state of Kerala.

These final aggregated scores for each state are based on multiple indicators – input, output, process and outcome indicators. Let’s have a look at the state of Tamil Nadu and discuss one of these indicators:

Figure 3: How much have states spent out of TSC funds?

Tamil Nadu has been able to utilize only 58 per cent of the total allocated funds so far even though TSC’s implementation phase is nearing its end. At present, the rural sanitation coverage for Tamil Nadu is 70 per cent (from Figure 2) which is a lot better than other states but perhaps, better utilization will make the overall ranks for Tamil Nadu better. Better spending will inevitably have positive spillover effects on the overall performance of the state.

Another interesting graph in the report is regarding the household toilet construction pace – current and required. Apparently, Tamil Nadu’s current construction capacity is 1288 toilets per day against the required capacity of 3109 toilets per day in order to achieve 100 per cent coverage by 2012. The following figure reflects the same:

Figure 4: Household Toilet Construction Pace – Current and Required

Finally, given the current and annual growth rate in coverage, India will attain complete coverage in individual household toilets by 2018.

Figure 5: Country and States Achieving Universal Sanitation (Household) Coverage (Year Wise)

The above graph indicates that Tamil Nadu, among other states, is lagging behind even though is one of the few states which show higher overall ranks for rural sanitation coverage.

More than 5.5 crore household toilets still need to be constructed – 3.1 crore APL and 2.4 crore BPL. Currently, India, on an average, constructs 29,247 toilets per day. However, India needs to construct more than 76,498 household toilets per day in the next two years to achieve 100 percent coverage which means doubling its efforts. How do we do it?

References: https://www.wsp.org/wsp/sites/wsp.org/files/publications/WSP_India_TSC_Report_Vol_1_Press.pdf?

- Somya Sethuraman

The much talked about elevated expressway from Chennai Port to Maduravoyal finally gets Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearance from The Ministry of Environment and Forests. For those who were unaware of this project or the recent developments, snapshots of maps from Transparent Chennai’s website might be of some help.

Following is a rough route map of the planned elevated expressway:

Further details are given below:

Right from its planning to inception stage, this large scale infrastructure project received a lot of negative criticism on account of not being pro-poor and environmentally friendly. Yet the project has so far succeeded in getting all approvals required for the smooth implementation of the project. While the CRZ clearance is subject to compliance with certain conditions, the question is are we well equipped to oversee that these conditions are not violated in due course?

Read more about this recent development in Hindu.

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Somya Sethuraman

This photojournal about the Pallikarnai wetlands was created by Sivapradha and Lalitha from the Centre for Development Finance, who spent many hours going back and forth to Pallikarnai to take photos of an issue that they are both concerned about. We felt we should share this piece of work with all our users!

Click here to view: Pallikaranai Photostory

Transparent Chennai Team

The team of Transparent Chennai sits in a comfortable air-conditioned office with a beautiful cafeteria, serene environment, excellent infrastructure with ergonomic chairs and clean, hygienic toilets. The last one on the list, i.e. washrooms, is something that can easily escape our attention. Many times I hear my colleagues say – “What an awesome cafeteria!”and “What a comfortable chair!”, but never heard anybody say that they are glad to have washrooms in this office. I suppose this is because most of us presume such basic needs and services to be in place. But what about other residents of Chennai, especially the less privileged ones – workers in the informal sector, residents living in slums, employees at workplaces without any access to sanitation? This is where public toilets come to the rescue of these not so privileged classes. Has the government succeeded in fulfilling these basic needs of its people? This is the question that daunted our team for a long time, and very soon enough became a new project, a new idea, a new reason for the team to get busy – ‘Access to Sanitation for Chennai Residents’

A few times when our office toilets are locked up temporarily for maintenance, everyone looks extremely worried and distracted. Now just imagine the plight of those workers, especially women workers, who are constantly worried about such things! How can they concentrate on their work or for that matter lead a hygienic and healthy life if adequate sanitation facilities are not provided to them? Transparent Chennai decided to find out how these people feel about this aspect of their lives.

1. Behind the scenes: Somya, Sam, Vaishnavi and Muthu.

The first step towards figuring out an answer is to have data to look at. One of our brightest interns went about the city collecting data on public toilets built by the Corporation of Chennai, and other private toilets, if any. Chennai city is divided into 10 Zones and the data told us that the number of toilets at present stands at 572. With each zone having a population of around 4lakhs, this number is quite disturbing. Further, while some zones have as many as 100 toilets, some barely have 20! This is all the more shocking. Never mind, we thought. Let’s go and talk to these people first. We chose Zone 4 from the list having the least number of toilets – 20 for our interaction.

Owner of a toilet poses for a snap

While the results of the survey/interviews will be disclosed later, I would really like to talk about our experience. First, the list given to us by the Corporation is far from being comprehensive. With only the street names with us, it was extremely difficult to locate these on the maps and Sam, I and Muthu had to sit with it for hours to figure it out on the map. Second, there were some street names which were at multiple locations on the map, making our search all the more difficult. But this was only the beginning. Once located on the map, the same had to be discovered in the field. Third, some of the streets did not even have a mention on any of the maps we referred to. So, we just went blindly to Zone 4 and began our search. I remember a certain Jagannathan street which we searched for almost an hour on the field. We kept going round and round the same roads and finally found this mysteriously hidden street to our relief. I am sure if asked to go back, none of us would have a clue about it. Probably the GPS points that we noted down at each location would come to our rescue.

Finally, the questionnaires had to be revised multiple times to suit our needs after taking into account the observations made on our first field visit. All in all, it was a really enriching yet tiring experience. The Chennai heat was gruesome and the rains only made the visits worse, with water clogging, traffic jams and blocked sewers. However, the people we interviewed were extremely friendly and welcoming and many offered to serve us tea and coffee in spite of their poor economic status. Children were really enthusiastic and grinned and laughed, probably more than I used to when I was a child. The people and their lives touched our hearts and made the entire experience warm and memorable. One thing which was pretty much obvious from the time we commenced this study is that, it is extremely difficult in this city to get any information, be it some basic information on public toilets.

Posted by Somya Sethuraman