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| Discussion in Progress |
Sanitation
is not only about hygiene but it significant for the health and overall
well-being of a person. According to the National
Sample Survey Organisation, December 2013, nearly 60 percent of the
rural India defecates in the open. Even urban India has not been able to
eliminate the scourge of open defecation. Whereas in comparison, our
neighbor country Bangladesh which has a per capita income only half of India’s,
only 5 percent defecate in the open.
Various
analysis by the experts have pointed towards the fact the lack of access to
toilets is not the only big issue. Building toilets is not the end to the
problem but there is also an underlying problem of social behavior, culture and
awareness towards sanitation.
With the
present government’s Swachh Bharat Campaign, sanitation has gained tremendous
impetus and political attention over the past few months. This mission to provide
improved sanitation to the vast numbers of people who lack this basic human
amenity can lead to vast improvements in national health indicators, and in
turn raise quality of life.
To discuss
this and to get a brief overview of the general sanitation situation in rural
& urban India today and the overarching challenges faced in meeting the
target for a Swachh Bharat in the next 4 years, the Governance & Public
Policy Initiative – Centre for Policy Research (GPPI-CPR) organised an interactive
discussion with the Members of Parliament on August 11, 2015.
This
included presentations by Mr. Neeraj Jain, Country
Director Water Aid International, on Rural Sanitation and by Dr.
Srinivas Chary Vedala, Director, Urban Governance,
Infrastructure, Environment and Energy, Administrative Staff College of India,
on urban sanitation.
A
multi-party group of 27 prominent Members of Parliament participated in the
discussion which was chaired by Dr. Sanjay Jasiwal, MP, BJP from Bihar.
