Sanitation engineers tout for public private partnerships for promotion of hygiene

From MASEMBE TAMBWE in Kolkata

Sanitation engineers in the Indian subcontinent are advocating for effective public – private partners to generate demands for sanitation in the community and promotion of hygiene.

Speaking during the opening of a national seminar on community development and river pollution control in Kolkata, the Sulabh International Social Service Organisation founder, Dr Bindeshwar Pathak said that the promotion shouldn’t be left to central and local governments alone but NGOs and CBOs also had a role to play.

“A river is as clean and as healthy as the inhabitants on its bank. Installing sewerage treatment plants at the outfall will not give us the desired results for pollution control unless the cities, towns, peri-urban and rural areas are clean and free from waste dumps in its entirety,” he said.

Dr Pathak said that there was a need for an effective combination of on site sanitation and waste water disposal systems.

Sanitation engineers agreed that there was an urgent need to address issues related to pollution of water bodies not only in India but other countries as well taking into account that 1,500 cubic kilometres of waste water are produced annually globally and water as a resource is getting scarce with minimal cities being conducted to the sewerage system.

According to IWA Water Wiki website, sanitation provision in Dar es Salaam is grossly deficient, as in most cities in sub-Saharan Africa where most people do not have access to a hygienic toilet; large amounts of faecal waste are discharged to the environment without adequate treatment.

The website cites that according to 2003 World Bank statistics less than 10 percent of households have a sewerage connection; about 20 percent (mostly in upper- and middle-income groups) have septic tanks, while the remainder are dependent on pit latrines.

“The sewerage system comprises about 140 km of sewers connected to an ocean outfall or to one of nine decentralized waste water stabilization ponds. As noted, only about 10 percent of households have a sewerage connection: as at 2003, the Dar es Salaam Water and Sewerage Authority (DAWASA) had about 22,000 sewerage customers.

Dr Pathak said that in developing countries like India, rivers and lakes were getting increasingly polluted because most water waste treatment plants were ill functioning and also due to untreated domestic sewerage loads from the urban habitats.

“The septic tank is also expensive and unaffordable for the majority of the population and they also require large volumes of water for flushing. There is a shortage of drinking water in almost all urban areas and hence water conservation is a critical issue,” he explained.

He proposed that an alternative model of management that he designed could be used which is a combination of on site excreta disposal system and decentralised flush compost toilet by using bio-gas plants and effluent treatment systems.

The West Bengal Urban Development Principal Secretary, Mr Debashis Sen said that whilst he agrees that there was a problem in the pollution of rivers in India, he advocated for a holistic approach where the interests of the communities benefiting should be taken into account.

Citing the Ganges Action Plan for the Ganges River where a programme is underway to clean it and has a target of attaining zero discharge by 2020, Mr Sen said that many people had misgivings on the programme saying that the objectives were taking too long to be met.

 He said that a similar river in Singapore which was heavily polluted took 20 years to get clean and it was only possible because near dictatorship decisions were taken to resettle the people, and that such stern decisions may be difficult in India because of the level of democracy.

“The only way a solution will be found is by taking the community into confidence such that a multiple dimension is taking into finding a solution to doing away with waste water pollution,” he said.

Mr Sen said that whilst there were vast amounts of technological solutions, it was important that these solutions involved the community who are dependent on the river either through their livelihood or religious rituals.    

The organising secretary of the seminar, Eng Tarun Dutta said that there were no policies that were static and rigid and couldn’t be taken for granted for life calling on decision makers to sit and make introspection on the basis of documented achievements and failures.

Eng Dutta said that seminar was aimed at creating a platform for brainstorming exercises to carry out purposeful prognosis involving professional organisations, institutes, academicians and other experts.

Human settlement chaos blocks sanitation delivery

A damning and long-awaited report into sanitation has been quietly published on the human settlement department's website.

The report reveals that many municipalities will not meet their millennium development goal of halving the lack of access to sanitation and proposes an overhaul of the whole sanitation structure.

The Malpractices in Sanitation Delivery report was compiled over the course of last year by the ministerial sanitation task team established by Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale. It was prompted by the open-toilet saga in the Western Cape and Free State and was chaired by Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

Though completed in September 2012 and presented to the parliamentary portfolio committee on human settlements, it was not released publicly and human settlements did not respond to questions. The Social Justice Coalition, a nongovernmental organisation working in Khayelitsha, was even planning to lodge a Promotion of Access to Information request to get hold of it.    

Then it appeared on the department’s website, riddled with spelling mistakes, with a link that appears not to work properly.

Gavin Silber, the head of the coalition, said it was problematic that the report was finalised in September, but released only now. “The deadline for its recommendations is June, so there doesn’t seem to be time for consultation,” he said. But its nearly 500 pages offer comprehensive criticism of the current state of sanitation.

In her introduction, Madikizela-Mandela warned: “I can unequivocally state that we have a serious problem that threatens to have a negative impact not only on the health of this nation, but on the very democratic culture we aspire to build.” This is evident in the continuing complaints about lack of service delivery. 

“Communities have spoken loudly and persuasively about the lack of proper sanitation,” she said.

Sanitation portfolio

The goal of her team was to help the government’s national sanitation programme by examining where it was going wrong or right. To do this, it visited 48 municipalities in all nine provinces. 

The biggest problem, the report found, was the scattering of the sanitation portfolio between spheres of government. Initially under water affairs, its legislation dealt mainly with water. But it then was moved to human settlements. Local government, co-operative governance, health and education are also involved.

“In most instances, legislation relating to the implementation and provision of sanitation is scattered throughout government departments with no central co-ordination,” it said.  

Silber agrees with this. “There is wide acknowledgement that sanitation has not been properly co-ordinated since it was passed from water affairs to human settlements in 2009. Responsibility has been passed back and forth like a hot potato.”

A report by the Human Rights Commission early last year, sparked by the same open-toilet scandal, discovered the same problem. It motivated for sanitation to be returned to water affairs.

The lack of national guidance has left development to local government. And with sanitation not being a money-earner – unlike water, for which money can be charged after the basic free allocation – it tends to be neglected. The main infrastructure funding for municipalities, the municipal infrastructure grant, goes into other programmes and there is no money for toilets to be built or maintained, the report said. 

Given this state of affairs, it concluded that many municipalities would not meet their millennium development goal for sanitation. But it did admit some progress. 

Five million households did not have access to sanitation in 1994 and the number is now about 2.4-million nationally. However, this number includes households that have a toilet that might not be working.

The task team is calling for the creation of a single body to run sanitation under human settlements. This would take over the duties and funding of all other departments. 

“The creation of a national sanitation agency will provide leadership,” it said.  Communities would then be included in their own development, which is not happening now.

Public-private partnerships must be reinforced and a special sanitation fund created to respond to community requests for assistance. The department did not respond in time to questions about the release of the report.

Sourced from Mail and Guardian - South Africa 

Dr Pathak: National conference of sociology of sanitation was huge success

By MASEMBE TAMBWE in New Delhi 

The Founder of the Sulabh Sanitation and Social Reform Movement, Dr Bindeshwar Pathak has added his name among the list of the few Indians who has successfully formulated a definition in the discipline of sociology.

Dr Pathak told WASH FAIR blog in an exclusive interview that history has it that most if not all definitions used in the disciplines of sociology have been formulated by foreigners and that it felt good to have come up with one for the sociology of sanitation.

“I wasn’t able to be a lecturer but I am very proud to come up with at least one definition that will be used for generations to come. I have fulfilled my dream,” he said.

Dr Pathak, the advocate for the inclusion into the discipline of sociology defined the sociology of sanitation as being a scientific study to solve the problems of society in relation to sanitation, social deprivation, water, public health, hygiene, ecology, environment, poverty, gender equality, welfare of children and empowering people for sustainable development.

He said that he regarded the completion of the just ended national conference of sociology of sanitation as having been very successful because it had started the ball rolling.

Dr Pathak cited that there were only two references so far on articles related to the sociology of sanitation in 1887 and 1896 and that having the greatest sociologists of the country to agree to follow up on his dream was a huge success.

“I am aware that more convincing is required to get most sociologists on board especially when you consider that the concept of sanitation is still very new for some professors and doctors,” he said.

In order to shed more light on sanitation, Sulabh International plans to invite at least 10 sociologists on a monthly basis to their headquarters in New Delhi where they will share their vast experience on sanitation.

Dr Pathak said that it was his conviction that once the four or six year course was introduced to colleges and universities, he had doubt that the demand would be overwhelming.

“Since 1992 Sulabh International has had a vocational training unit and since that time not a single boy or girl who has been admitted left without securing a job. This course has the advantage of employing people and also creating self employment.

He said that when Sulabh started, they were working in the dark but were still able to make a difference in society adding that there was every reason for more people to do even better things when there is an actual course for it.

 

Gears towards a soiology of sanitation discipline start to grind

By MASEMBE TAMBWE in New Delhi

Dr Bindeshwar Pathak addressing participants of the national conference of sociology of sanitation recently

Sociologists in the Indian Subcontinent have unanimously agreed to introduce sociology of sanitation as a new sub-discipline at the national and global level.

The Sulabh International founder, Dr Bindeshwar Pathak told the Daily News that he felt there was a need for a new sub-discipline of sociologist because of the growing interest the world is having on sanitation and benefits it has to society.

“It is my firm belief that the time has come when sanitation should be included as a discipline in sociology because of the core problems embodying sanitation,” he said.

The importance of sanitation has also trickled down to Tanzania where recently the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare started implementing a pilot project in three districts of Dodoma with funding from the Global Sanitation Fund as well as launching a national campaign last year.

Dr Pathak, the advocate for the inclusion into the discipline of sociology defined the sociology of sanitation as being a scientific study to solve the problems of society in relation to sanitation, social deprivation, water, public health, hygiene, ecology, environment, poverty, gender equality, welfare of children and empowering people for sustainable development.

Sulabh International is an Indian based social service organization which works to promote human rights, environmental sanitation, non-conventional sources of energy, waste management and social reforms through education and is the largest non-profit organization in India.   

The Minister for Rural Development, Mr Jairam Ramesh and the Speaker, Lok Sabha, Ms Meira Kumar were among the speakers during the opening of the national conference on siocology of sanitation

A national conference on sociology of sanitation just ended in Delhi where sociologist from around the country also proposed that the new sub-discipline should engage with sanitation at the theoretical, empirical and action level.

The conference recommended that the primary objective of the discipline was to achieve total elimination of open defecation (easing oneself in the open and not in toilets) and empowering of the disadvantaged communities.

It was recommended that at the pragmatic level, the use of Sulabh models and technologies would achieve ecological sanitation in affordable and efficient manner.

Others recommendations included the development of appropriate curriculum, literature and plan action, having a working group under the leadership of Dr Pathak, having a tentative syllabus and that the Indian Sociological Society should have a research committee.

The Secretary of the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Mr Pankaj Jain (in black suit) shares a moment with Dr Pathak during the closing of the conference

The Secretary of the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Mr Pankaj Jain said during the closing of the conference that NGOs of the calibre of Sulabh International were needed to be in the forefront of promotion of sanitation.

Mr Jain said that it gravely saddened him that India was rapidly inching towards becoming a superpower with the highest levels of technological advancements, some of the best doctors yet it accounted for over 60 percent of the global population that defecate in the open.

“This is indeed a national shame. According to the current statistics, 67 percent of the rural population defecate in the open and 13 percent in the urban areas,” he said.

The Minister called for strong advocacy particularly in the rural areas saying that at least there space wasn’t so much of an issue like in the urban areas but stressed that urbanisation needed to be checked and controlled because of the increased slum areas.

Mr Jain said that the best way that sociology of sanitation as a discipline could take off is if the subject started being taught at lower levels in schools and that it should be part of the curriculum.

He said that the concept of sewerage treatment plants was still unknown to people especially those in the rural areas and urged NGOs to lend a helping hand as solid and liquid waste management was becoming a problem.

Sulabh International has been operating for over 40 years and has constructed more than 8000 public toilets at all important places in India that serve more than 15 million people every day where 200 are linked with biogas plants.

Sulabh's twin pit latrine model is renowned across the global for using less water to flush, doesn't need to be connected to the sewerage system and is designed in such a way that it doesn't emit any foul smells

Training of its technologies have been organised for officers, engineers and architects to African countries like Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Tanzania where currently there are 13 members from the Chadema opposition party including the wife of Dr Wilbrod Slaa undergoing training.

Sourced from the Daily News