Soon after its independence from the British, India embarked on a journey to improve the rural sanitation coverage. The first step towards improving sanitation and health was taken by the Government of India in 1951. Several schemes and plans were introduced to achieve the goals of a healthy and clean life for rural people. With the same objective as that of ameliorating cleanliness in rural areas through Solid and Liquid Waste Management and making Gram Panchayats Open Defecation Free (ODF), Rural Sanitation Department was established in the erstwhile J&K State in October 1989. However, three decades have passed since the establishment of the department but the same has gone from bad to worse. Of late, several much-hyped schemes were also introduced by the government but the factors like lack of planning, funding, awareness among common masses and changing patterns of lifestyle in rural areas have rendered these schemes useless. Despite making a significant improvement in reducing the practice of open defecation; the countryside of Jammu and Kashmir has not shown any progress on the overall sanitation level.
What has been done to fix the broken sanitation in India
The 1981 census revealed that rural sanitation coverage in India stands only at only 1%. In this backdrop, the Central Rural Sanitation Programme (CRSP) was launched in 1986 primarily with the objective of improving the quality of life of the rural people and also to provide privacy and dignity to women. After that, several campaigns were launched with a goal to generate awareness on sanitation, accelerate sanitation coverage in rural areas and make the villages open defecation free. However, the 2011 census revealed that only 30.7 percent of households in rural India have access to toilets. A report by UNICEF and WHO suggested that a mere 21% of rural India used improved sanitation facilities in 2008, than in earlier years. In order to address this urgent problem of “substandard sanitation” in India, the government in the year 2012 increased funding for rural sanitation by 425% from Rs. 6540 crore in the 11th Five Year Plan, to Rs. 34,377 crore in the 12th Five Year Plan. The motive was to create awareness among the rural population of India for proper sanitation and waste disposal methods and achieve the vision of Nirmal Bharat by 2022 with all gram Panchayats in the country attaining Nirmal status.
On 2 October 2014, on the 150th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi, the central Government launched Swachh Bharat Abhiyan campaign aimed to eradicate open defecation by 2 October 2019 by constructing 90 million toilets in rural India at a projected cost of ₹1.96 lakh crore (US$27 billion). It is worthwhile to mention here that no previous government in the history of Independent India has ever attempted to tackle the challenges of sanitation at this scale and with such a large financial commitment.
Sanitation status in Jammu and Kashmir
Sanitation remains the worst in Jammu and Kashmir. According to census data, only 38.6 percent of rural households had access to toilets in 2011. In 2018, the NDTV reported that Sanitation in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) is among the worst in India, with around 59 percent of households without a toilet. According to the data available on Swachh Bharat Mission dashboard, over 2 lakh (2,02,238) individual household toilets were constructed in rural J&K after the launch of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in 2014. In the last three years, the state’s sanitation coverage has improved only to 40.97 percent from 20.38 percent in 2014. “Only 412 villages out of 6694 are ODF, which calculates to just 6.15 percent of the total villages.” Even the sanitation situation in urban areas of the state is not very promising too as only 1,851 individual toilets have been constructed against a staggering 80,458 applications, as per the Swachh Bharat Mission dashboard.
“The lack of sanitation awareness among people living in rural areas is not just the only factor behind the state’s poor sanitation scenario. The law and order situation in Kashmir, along with connectivity issues and communication (telecom) barriers in the remotest villages, also plays a factor for the limited sanitation coverage,” M.M Rehman Ghasi, Director Rural Sanitation Jammu & Kashmir, was quoted as saying by the NDTV.
“The model of Information, Education and Communication (IEC) to ensure behavioural change among people, to stop open defecation and use toilets is being adopted in the state. But due to law and order situations and security concerns, we sometimes have to restrict our sanitation awareness activities. Measures are being taken by the government to ensure the construction of individual household latrines (IHHL) in the villages,” MrGhasi had told the NDTV.
As per Swatch Bharat Mission (SBM) data, 1187766 toilets and 1350 sanitary complexes have been constructed in J&K. But contrary to the data, rural sanitation has not significantly improved in the erstwhile state over the past six years. Also, on the SBM website almost all villages in Jammu and Kashmir were declared ODF; but the information is “unverified and misleading” and the same can be analyzed by consulting the independent surveys which have found that the vast majority of people in villages are still using dry latrines.
According to SBM website, Rs. 12,000 is an incentive amount to motivate households to construct toilets and use them. “This amount is sufficient for the construction of a twin pit toilet in rural areas,” reads an answer to one of the FAQ’s on Swatch Bharat Mission. But the payment was not enough for the construction of latrines. As in many cases, a householder received compensation for constructing a latrine but couldn’t make it functional. The Rural Sanitation Department tried very hard to achieve the target of ODF, but due to the lack of awareness among common people, improper planning and insufficient funding, the target remained unachievable.
According to a micro-study “Jammu and Kashmir’s Open Defecation Free Status” carried out by Economic&PoliticalWEEKLY, the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, now the union territory of J&K, attained 100% open defecation free status in September 2018, well before the Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen) deadline of 2 October 2019. “However, the movement of women in flocks to fields as it gets dark portrays quite a different picture.” The micro-study answered the following critically important questions: Do the so-called individual household latrines exist only on paper, while being incomplete and non-functional in reality? Are these not being used due to cultural barriers and socialisation? What policy steps are needed to effect change in rural sanitation behaviour? It also suggested a way forward.
Sanitation and waste management fails to change with the changing times
The pattern and trend of the rural population have changed over the past decade. A rapid shift has taken place from the traditional way of living to modernization. Rapid growth in population has been noticed over the past few decades. Due to all these developments, human activities increased in rural areas, resulting in copious usage of water and raw material that produces unusable solid wastes and sewage. Keeping in view the developments, the government launched the Solid Liquid Waste Management (SLWM) programme. However, the focus remained on toilet targets and ODF achievements, but there was no real push for SLWM. The Panchayats could have been instrumental in implementing this programme at the grassroots but the lack of support from the administration and lack of standard accountable operating procedure at the grassroots for programme implementation led to this possibility not being tapped as per its potential. As a result, J&K failed to implement the programme at the ground level thus leaving the countryside without any facilities for liquid and solid waste dumping, and every nook and cranny of villages turning into dumping sites.
The livestock in rural areas generate large amounts of wastes and for the management of this waste, the Gobar-Dhan scheme was launched in the erstwhile state but it was not implemented anywhere in Jammu and Kashmir.
Inadequate understanding and insensitivity at the local level are impeding the cleanliness of the gram Panchayat. Crores of rupees have been spent on the Information Education and Communication programmes, but the administration has failed to bring any change in the behavior of the public. Many NGOs received funding for running such programmes but to no avail.
The core factors at present that can be thus be cited as impacting the failure of waste management in Jammu and Kashmir are as follows:
- increased population growth
- inadequate and inefficient Panchayat institutions
- low-income groups pose a challenge to administrators as they are not trained in the segregation of waste and waste management
- Lack of adequate waste processing unit infrastructure
The complex problem of underdevelopment in rural areas is proportionally affecting sanitation. The quantity of slops has increased and the use of materials, including polythene and plastic products, continues to surge at an alarming rate. The lack of proper drainage systems, dilapidated lanes and unavailability of dust bins, dumping sites without waste segregation practices has left the rural areas at an overall disadvantage.
Conclusion
In the month of October this year, Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha, called for development of self-sustaining Public Conveniences across the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. He laid special emphasis on improving public conveniences and infrastructure for the general public, especially in major cities, towns and along highways. The Lt Governor directed the concerned officers to identify large stretches of major roads and plan the construction of Public Conveniences infrastructure on the basis of standard designs, common theme and common branding. He also set the target of construction of 700-800 Public Toilets within three months time.
As the Lieutenant Governor administration is well on its way to achieving its targets of constructing 700-800 Public Toilets, it should also take into consideration the findings of this article and following recommendations with regard to Jammu and Kashmir’s Rural Sanitation and Waste Management.
Recommendations:
- The government should focus on the proper implementation of the SLWM programme through which it should install incinerators and vending machines for waste management in villages.
- To achieve the sanitation goals, it is imperative to involve the local population in this endeavor through motivational and awareness programmes.
- It is high time to encourage local communities and seek their help to change public perceptions about sanitation and waste management. It would be feasible to assign such tasks to the Panchayats.
- It is important for the Jammu and Kashmir administration to revisit the SBM (G) programme and study its impact on the ground level to implement its missing components at the community level in full swing.
References
https://jalshakti-ddws.gov.in/sites/default/files/TSCGuideline2007_0.pdf
http://www.unicef.org/media/files/JMPreport2012.pdf
https://sanitation.indiawaterportal.org/english/node/2642
https://swachhbharatmission.gov.in/SBMCMS/faq.htm
https://www.epw.in/journal/2020/43/notes/jammu-and-kashmirs-open-defecation-free-status.html
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