Policy Update
Khushboo Dandona
According to the WHO, over 1.5 billion people still do not have basic sanitation services such as private toilets or latrines. Out of these, 419 million still defecate in the open, for instance, on streets, gutters, or into open water bodies. In the Indian context, nearly half of the population, around 568 million people, defecate in fields, forests, bodies of water, or other public places. To overcome this, India has adopted various schemes and policies. For instance, the Swachh Bharat mission.
The Swachh Bharat Mission is one of the largest sanitation missions led by the Government of India. It was launched by PM Modi on October 2, 2014, to honour Mahatma Gandhi on his 145th birth anniversary. The mission’s goal was to provide basic sanitation facilities to every family, such as the construction of toilets, solid and liquid waste disposal, and ensuring a safe and adequate drinking water supply across the country. The Swachh Bharat Mission comprises two missions- Swachh Bharat Mission- Gramin (SBM-G) and Urban (SBM-U). This essay will focus on the Swachh Bharat Mission- Urban (SBM-U).
Under the urban initiative, cleaning the streets, roads, and infrastructure within the cities also raises awareness related to sanitation and hygiene. The Swachh Bharat Mission—Urban 1.0 aims to free urban India from open defecation and achieve 100% scientific management of municipal solid waste in 4,041 statutory towns in the country. It has brought impressive changes over the years in many cities. Cities like Surat and Indore have emerged as role models in maintaining cleanliness and effectively managing municipal waste. Indore has emerged as one of the 3,547 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) that have been declared Open Defecation Free Plus (ODF+). The second phase of SBM-U was launched on 1st October 2021, for 5 years (till October 2026). The vision is to achieve “Garbage Free” status for all cities by 2026. It will help to improve the quality of life and ease of living of urban populations, thus leading to urban transformation.
Budget allocation
The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has been allocated ₹12,192 crore in the 2025 Budget. While the urban component has received ₹5,000 crores, the rural-centred scheme got ₹7,192 crores in this year’s Budget. The allocation has remained unchanged after the 2022 Budget, when Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced ₹9,492 crore for the combined flagship scheme.
India’s progress in waste management
According to official documents of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India, it is claimed that before 2014, heaps of garbage dotted the urban landscape, impacting the health of citizens. However, today we saw a noteworthy improvement. Cities have become cleaner. This could be possible only with the help of vehicles that travel door to door to collect the household and other solid waste. There are more than 2.5 lakh collection vehicles that are actively working. There was an improvement in the source of segregation of waste, and it has been adopted by more households. Overall, an ecosystem has been created through this policy, and awareness has also been generated on critical issues such as source segregation of waste, effective management of construction, reduction in single-use plastic, etc.
As of 27th September 2024, the SBM dashboard shows that out of the 69 landfill sites in cities with a population over 1 million, land is yet to be cleared in 35 sites. These 69 sites have 57% of the total waste dumped in the country. About 20% of the total landfills have been completely remediated. Among these, some of the major sites are Mumbai’s Deonar and Mulund dumpsites, Ahmedabad’s Pirana, Ghazipur in Delhi, and Kodungaiyur in Chennai. All these lands have not been cleared. According to The Indian Express, on 13th September 2024, during a press conference, Housing and Urban Affairs Minister, Manohar Lal Khattar said the “process was on” on clear on all the lands. In two years, the government had cleared 20% of sites completely. There are some sites where 50% work is done, while at others, 70% of the work is done. There is hope that this work will be completed in the next two years. However, the experts believe that the planning process has been inadequate. Remediation of landfills remains a challenge in India’s urban waste management landscape. Despite progress, many landfills continue to present environmental, health, and space constraints. There is no proper training or planning carried out before starting the bioremediation process. Another issue is that without alternative locations to process fresh waste, the remediation process becomes a perpetual cycle.
Source- The Indian Express
India’s journey to Open Defecation Free (ODF)
As Mahatma Gandhi said, sanitation is more important than independence. Proper sanitation and hygiene are essential not only for a disease-free and healthy life but also for a dignified human life. Under this, to improve the living conditions and provide dignity and respect, all Urban areas have become ODF except 1 ULB of West Bengal. This has been achieved through the construction of 66.86 lakh individual household toilets and 6.40 lakh seats of community or public toilets. The Water+ protocols help to ensure that no untreated waste is discharged into the open environment or water bodies. 3,309 cities till 2nd October 2021 have been certified ODF+, and 9 cities have become Water+.
The construction of toilets has a major impact on population health. The recent study published in the prestigious science journal, ‘Nature’ has shown that it has averted 60,000-70,000 infant deaths annually. There is a direct link between disease and open defecation. It is a known source of water and food contamination, which often leads to repeated infections, malabsorption of nutrients, and dehydration. National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data shows that over the years, there has been a fall in households with no toilet facilities. It has been 19% in the 2019-21 survey under the subsidised provision of toilets at scale under the SBM. The major drawback of this approach is that it subsidises the one-time construction of private sanitation facilities that mainly provide benefits to those who can build and maintain them. Another drawback is that SBM-U has emerged as a “Jan Andolan”, a people’s movement. This policy subtly shifts the burden of managing liquid and solid waste and developing, operating, and maintaining public infrastructure for it onto the public. Despite constructing private household toilets, many households are not using them. Ownership does not guarantee the use of it. It is not unexpected. India is a caste-based society. Several points affect them from using the toilets, such as caste identities, gender safety, availability of technical support, etc. The notion of purity and pollution is deeply ingrained. They believe that defecating in the proximity of the household, even inside the household, is unclean. This is the reason for those who do not use toilets typically require exceptionally large pits to collect their waste. A survey conducted by the RICE institution reflected that more than 40% of households had working latrines; however, at least one member chose to defecate in the open. In most of the scenarios, it was seen that rural migrants carry their ritual tenets of caste purity and taboo to the urban slums. Apart from this, certain cultural and religious beliefs restrict them from using the toilets. The demographic locations also matter. In Suraj Jacob et.al, 2021 paper titled ‘Why don’t they use the toilet built for them?’ Explaining toilet use in Chhattisgarh, Central India, various groups use toilets differently; some people use toilets regularly, and some others never use them. However, there are social group that used toilets before the government policies. Open defecation is a habitual social practice, whereas using toilets is a new phenomenon for various communities and castes. In some scenarios, it was seen that adopting the use of toilets is a political ecology and a social pressure. Some adopted it due to a quest for pride and to achieve a status in society.
Another aspect that impacts regular toilet use is the functionality and safety of the toilet, which is based on the technology used. The Indian government through Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation (DDWS) (earlier a ministry) suggests that the twin pit pour flush toilet (TPPF) technology is the most responsive technical option in most geographies but it does allow for changes to the toilet technology or modification to TPPF toilets, depending upon the local context. One of the studies conducted by WaterAid India about the quality and sustainability of toilets being constructed under SBM highlighted: TPPF was used in 57 per cent of households, single pits in 22 per cent, and septic tanks in 21 per cent. The study further stated that 31 percent of the constructed toilets, nonetheless functional, were unsafe.
Exclusion in Public Toilets
Men and women have diverse sanitation needs due to their bodily autonomy. In the case of sanitation, women suffer more than men. Every month, they have to go through the challenges of menstruation. Traditionally, menstrual health is neglected, and menstruation is aligned with taboos and social stigma. “Toilet insecurity” denotes the unavailability of operable toilets. The construction of public toilets under the scheme of SBM-U encourages all genders to use them. However, in the case of women, using the public washrooms increases the chances of Urinary tract infections (UTI) due to the unhygienic condition of these toilets, as municipal corporations fail to provide adequate maintenance. This remains persistent due to a lack of ownership at the local government. The construction of toilets is not enough; they need to be maintained, kept clean, and widely used. Rather than constructing more and new toilets, it requires a widespread change in the attitudes and traditions of all city residents that would promote sanitary practices, healthy hygiene, and urban environment, and reform of a cultural system that allows only a small minority to clean toilets or deal directly with human waste. The public washrooms are not safe for use, and they increase the risk of sexual harassment. Most washrooms are not constructed in a way that ensures comfort and hygiene during menstruation. As Mac Kinnon says, the state is masculine in nature. All the infrastructure is designed with the assumption that men are the primary citizens of the nation. In the case of household private toilets, certain socio-cultural taboos restrict women from using them. Due to that, they have to control their urine for an extended time, or they often drink less water. The difficulties are not limited to women or young girls; using public toilets is challenging for Persons with Disabilities (PwD).
Sanitation work and SBM-U- the gap between promise and practice
SBM-U claims to focus on the dignity of sanitation workers; however, it does not deal with sludge and sewage. In medieval times, occupation was divided based on the ideals of the Varnashrama dharma. The varna system is divided into four varnas- Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishya and Shudras. Those who cannot be assigned any of the four varnas, allegedly for their grievous sins of a past life, become the outcastes, the untouchables, or the Dalits. The varnas also talk about the type of labour. The sanitation work, waste management, and other activities related to it aligned with lower sub castes among the outcaste Dalits. More than 22,327 Dalits of a sub-community die doing the sanitation work every year. Their safety always remains at risk. To protect them, it was seen in Delhi that the manhole worker wears nothing more than a loincloth or half pants. After the National Human Rights Commission’s 2002 directives, they used a “safety belt”. However, these are ineffective as the belt connected outside does not protect the worker from the gases and sharp objects that can cause injury.
SBM-U focused on waste management, disposal of garbage, public awareness, etc. Without proper public toilets, essential sanitation laws, and accountable municipal authorities, these schemes end up being just a poorly planned program rather than a real solution to sanitation. The document of SBM-U mentions the guidelines for ‘Sanitation workers and Safai Mitras’. This section always remains neglected and ignored. The second phase focuses on formalizing their labour, social security benefits, and improved working conditions. To enhance their life and to provide them with dignity, new technologies are introduced to meet the demands of modern waste management. Nowhere in the document does it clarify how workers will be trained or what the process is to receive training. The problem persists, sewage workers in urban municipalities have to enter sewers regularly and come into direct contact with human excreta. The project indirectly places the onus on the vulnerable community to lead nation-building without focusing on the per capita availability of facilities at the periphery. India’s ‘poor neighborhood’ is considered unfit to integrate into ‘nationhood’. Swachh Bharat Mission combined the idea of the nation, nationhood, and purity. India’s urban planners, designers, and technologists have never felt the need to conceive a human-friendly system of managing garbage and sewage.
Way forward
India is one of the countries where more than 60 crore people have no sanitation facilities at home, they prefer open defecation. SBM-U is one of the largest urban sanitation behaviour change programs in the world. It has been able to accelerate India’s progress in ensuring the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all (SDG 6). The policy, such as SBM-U, also states that health is not restricted to the doctor or patient; it takes off. The new definition of health, which Michel Foucault calls medicine (by medicine, they mean the entire discourse of health), became social. It means that medicine is not just for individual care or treatment, but it moves beyond and becomes a tool of governing bodies regulating society, where state and medical institutions manage the life and death of an individual. SBM-U is a progressive step, however, it is a way that the state focuses on individualised attention to citizens’ habits and behaviours. This was evident by this mission that emphasises behavioural change, such as toilet use, and this reflects clearly how public health initiatives now aim not only at external conditions but also to regulate individual practices to achieve better health outcomes, such as a reduction in infant mortality. The social medicine, not only cures and administers disease but also focuses on strengthening its state subject, i.e, its population and the health of the economy. Sanitation has a broader impact on economic development. Improved sanitation leads to fewer diseases, which results in a healthier population. A healthier population means more productivity, which is an aspect of capitalism. The World Bank estimates that poor sanitation costs India around $53.8 billion annually, impacting health, productivity, and economic growth.
However, despite this contribution, the SBM-U needs certain changes that make the policy more effective, inclusive, and sustainable. One of the major concerns is that the use of toilets is not purely an infrastructural challenge, but one that has extremely significant social roots. The deeply ingrained caste system continues to shape access to sanitation. This perspective challenges the usual mindset among decision makers in government and international development agencies, who often dismiss caste as a thing of the past or simply ignore its role.
Another major concern, to opt for gender sensitive policies that are more inclusive while promoting literacy among the population. Address the challenges faced by sewage workers, who often work in hazardous and exploitative conditions.
To conclude this, while SBM-U has made certain improvements in sanitation progress. It still needs to address the structural inequalities. Barriers like caste, gender, and labor conditions cannot be overlooked. Without certain reforms, SBM-U remains a short-term intervention rather than a transformative step.
References
- GATADE, S. (2015). Silencing Caste, Sanitising Oppression: Understanding Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Economic and Political Weekly, 50(44), 29–35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44002800
- Michel Foucault, The Birth of Social Medicine
- Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. (n.d.). Swachh Bharat Mission Urban – 1.0. Swachh Bharat Mission – SBM Urban 2.0. https://sbmurban.org/aboutUs
- Shekhar, S. (2023). Sanitising India or Cementing Injustice? Scrutinising the Swachh Bharat Mission in India. CASTE: A Global Journal on Social Exclusion, 4(1), 130–143. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48728109
- Jacob, S., Natrajan, B., & Ajay, T. G. (2021). ‘Why don’t they use the toilet built for them?’: Explaining toilet use in Chhattisgarh, Central India. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 55(1), 89-115. https://doi.org/10.1177/0069966720972565
About the Contributor: Khushboo Dandona, a research intern at IMPRI India and a postgraduate student of Gender Studies at the Dr BR Ambedkar University, Delhi.
Acknowledgment: The author would like to express sincere gratitude to Dr.Arjun Kumar, Ms. Aasthaba Jadeja and the IMPRI team for allowing writing the article.
Disclaimer: All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organisation.
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