India, Karnataka: local politician stages “sit in” to get toilets built

A District Councillor staged a “dharna” (sit in) to get villagers to construct toilets in their homes.

Kurubarahatty, a village with a population of 5,000 on the outskirts of Chitradurga in Karnataka, has been selected for the ‘Nirmala Grama Pursakar’ rural sanitation scheme. Zilla Panchayat (district) officials visited the village on several occasions to convince people to construct toilets under the scheme.

Toilet dharna at Kurubarahatty. Photo: Deccan Herald

While a few responded, some continued to defecate in open fields. Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive Officer Range Gowda along with other officials visited Kurubarahatty on Saturday to enlighten villagers on the scheme. The beneficiaries will get Rs 4,400 [US$ 94] for the purpose.

Even as the CEO emphasised on the need for toilets, Onkarappa, a resident, refused to construct one for his house and instead demanded water supply, drainage facility and better roads on priority basis.

The CEO’s explanation that there was no water scarcity in the village failed to convince him.
A miffed CEO sat on a dharna saying that he won’t budge unless the family agreed to construct the toilet. And the effort yielded result. Onkarappa buckled and even the work began at the very moment.

Speaking to reporters Rangegowda regretted that even educated women in the village were opposing construction of toilets. He said dharna was inevitable for successful time-bound implementation of the scheme.

Source: Deccan Herald, 10 Jul 2010

India: impact of sanitation award scheme to be assessed

The government will assess the impact and sustainability of the Nirmal Gram Puraskar (Clean Village Award) scheme implemented between 2005-2008. The Department of Drinking Water Supply under the Ministry of Rural Development will conduct a survey, based on a methodology that it developed with UNICEF, in 12 states*.

The objective is to assess the impact of NGP [Nirmal Gram Puraskar] on the pace of progress of sanitation availability and usage in the country under TSC [Total Sanitation Campaign] and its related impacts on health, education, gender empowerment, social inclusion in rural areas on different user groups particularly the rural poor. This study will also assess the durability and sustainability on the provision and usage of sanitary facilities over time. The rational of this evaluation study will be to provide important evidence on the NGP component of the TSC. The Study will provide a national level report on assessment of impact of NGP.

The Government of India introduced the NGP incentive scheme in 2003 under its Total Sanitation Campaign to reward local government institutions at village, block and district level, that had achieved full sanitation coverage (for households, schools and day-care centres) and were declared open defecation free.

* States to be covered in NGP assessment survey

Source: DDWS

A 2008 UNICEF study on NGP villages found high levels of non-use of toilets (34%), and that only 34% of schools had separate toilets for girls and boys. In most villages the study found a “severe drop in efforts towards social mobilisation and monitoring of ODF status after the NGP award has been received. This has resulted in slippage of ODF status in many GPs and is a serious concern with respect to sustainability”.

Source: PIB, 13 May 2010 ; DDWS/Ministry of Rural Development, 11 May 2010 ; India Sanitation Portal – Nirmal Gram Puraskar

India, Himachal Pradesh: good response to sanitation awareness campaign

The hill state of Himachal Pradesh is surging ahead on the path of becoming completely free from open defecation by the end of 2010.

There has been a tremendous increase in rural sanitation coverage from less than 30 per cent in 2001 to over 80 per cent in 2009. The campaign to stamp out open defecation is eliciting encouraging response from the rural masses and yielding a positive outcome.

The gram panchayats, which achieve 100 per cent sanitation coverage in terms of individual household toilets, schools and anganwadis, defecation-free and clean environment are being provided fiscal incentives. As many as 22 gram panchayats (village councils) were given the “Nirmal Gram Puraskar” in 2006-07 and the number rose to 245 in 2007-08 and 253 in the following year. Gram panchayats receiving the incentives could use the funds for maintaining sanitation facilities in their respective areas. The blocks and districts could use the funds to set up monitoring mechanisms for sanitation. However, the gram panchayat is derecognised if it fails to maintain the ODF status.

The maximum number of 125 Nirmal panchayats was in Mandi, followed by 29 in Kangra, 23 in Shimla, 25 in Hamirpur, 15 in Solan, 13 in Sirmaur, 7 in Chamba, 8 in Bilaspur, 3 each in Kullu and Lahaul and Spiti, one each in Una and Kinnaur. They were given cash rewards ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 5 lakh A sum of Rs 3.65 crore would be disbursed among the ‘Nirmal Gram Panchayats’ so that the remaining panchayats were also inspired to follow their footsteps. The government has decided to honour the people who contribute in the implementation of total sanitation programme in their respective areas.

The government has also started the ’Maharishi Valmiki Sampuran Swachhata Puraskar’ to help achieve the goal of safe and hygienic sanitation facilities for all and to motivate the panchayati raj institutions. School sanitation reward scheme and Mahila Mandal Protsahan Yojna has also been started.

Source: The Tribune, 21 Feb 2010

India Sanitation Portal launched

Arghyam and the WASH Institute have launched the India Sanitation Portal, as a sister web site of the India Water Portal. The new Portal is a collaborative effort with content initially provided by Arghyam, Plan International, Stockholm Environmental Institute, UNICEF, WASH Institute, WaterAid, Water and Sanitation Program, Water for People, and Wherever the Need.

An important part of the Portal is the section on GIS applications and maps related to the performance of Total Sanitation Campaign and Nirmal Gram Puraskar, the flagship government programs related to rural sanitation. These applications were created through data obtained courtesy of the Department of Drinking Water Supply, Government of India.

Other sections are a searchable database of organisations and a Knowledge & Resources section with full text case studies, course materials, videos, research papers and policy documents.

India: public hygiene initiative for villages has not worked, says NGO

Nirmal Gram Puraskar (NGP), which translates as clean village prize, was launched five years ago to promote sanitation in rural India with a [Rs 500,000] cash reward for villages [which achieve 100% sanitation coverage in terms of (a) 100% sanitation coverage of individual house holds, (b) 100% school sanitation coverage (c) free from open defecation and (d) clean environment maintenance].

The public hygiene initiative hasn’t quite worked the way it was meant to, according to a study by a not-for-profit organization, The Action Research Unit, or Taru, supported by Unicef.

[T]he study, with a sample size of 7,100 households and carried out between January and April 2008, showed that in 162 villages that had received the first and second lots of the prize in 2004-05 and 2005-06, the practice had resurfaced, said Ranjan Verma, director of Taru.

NGP is part of the government’s Total Sanitation Campaign.

[T]he monitoring system and social mobilization had been so heavily geared towards earning the Nirmal Gram status and the cash reward that comes with it that the gains were being frittered away, he said.

In October [2008], President Pratibha Patil gave away the NGP to a total of 4,278 gram panchayats, or village councils.

[...] Toilets clogging up because of a lack of maintenance back-up and an insufficient number of trained masons were cited by [Bindeshwar] Pathak, [founder of Sulabh International], and Verma as reasons impeding the scheme.

The Taru study was carried out to assess the impact of the programme in 162 villages spread across Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Besides the 7,100 households, it covered 500 schools and child- and mother-care centres known as anganwadis. The study found about 15% of households did not have access to a toilet and [practised open defecation]. “This is because within a panchayat there are houses which are either on the fringes or belong to those who don’t get along with the village ‘establishment’,” said Verma.

And as many as 34% of the households that had constructed toilets did not use them regularly.

See also: Effectiveness of Indian incentives for rural sanitation questioned, Source Bulletin, Nov 2007

Source: Rajdeep Datta Roy, liveMint.com, 16 Nov 2008

India, Jharkhand: Hygiene model draws foreign team

After bagging the Centre-sponsored Nirmal Gram Puraskar award in May 2008, the district of East Singhbhum, Jharkhand, was visited on October 21st by an international team researching successful Unicef-sponsored projects across the world. The 17-member team comprising representatives from eight countries of Asia and Africa team visited four villages and schools which had benefited from the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) and Integrated Village Planning Programme (IVPP) of Unicef.

“The team members were impressed by the design of toilets we are promoting in the district. The village information centre developed under IVPP were also a new thing for the team. The information centres formed by us would help villagers to gather information about government schemes and how it can benefit them,” said a member of the Unicef team.

Abbash Bibakar Adamu of Nigeria, who was part of the team, said: “The district has done a wonderful job under TSC. I would go back and recommend it to the government in my country to provide subsidy for constructing toilets as is being practised here.”

Sources: The Telegraph, 22 Oct 2008 ; The Telegraph, 14 Oct 2008 ; UNICEF India, May 2008