Some of the alarming sanitation facts of our country.
In 1980 rural sanitation coverage was estimated at 1% and reached 21% in 2008.Now totally only 31% of population are using improved sanitation facilities.
60 per cent of all open defecation in the world are in India.
Out of six lakh villages in India, hardly 25,000 are free from open defecation.
One of out every two Indians is forced to defecate in the open
Sanitation is key factor for school drop outs.While 96% of India’s children enroll in primary school, by the age of 10 about 40% have dropped out, says the education department. Just over a third of high school students graduate.
Kamrajar started mid day meal scheme as children were dropping out due to lack of food.Like wise all dropout factors have to be nailed by govt.
The nation will need 1.5 million trained technicians every year for the next decade — twice the number it currently produces.So more priority needs to be given to education.India spends just 3.5% of its gross domestic product on education, way below China’s 8%.
India remains the “dirtiest and filthiest” country in the world, Says Drinking Water and Sanitation Minister Jairam Ramesh.
“Today, if you go to many parts of India, you have women with a mobile phone, going out to answer the call of nature. I mean it is paradoxical…you have a mobile phone and you don’t have a toilet. When you have a toilet, you don’t use the toilet… use it as a godown,” Says Jairam Ramesh.They need to understand value of cleanliness.
Water supply has always been never ending problem in India but did make some progress
,although there are still vast areas where people have no access to potable water, where women have to walk miles to fetch a few litres of water.
Absence of sanitation is even bigger problem. It is a burden that women especially must carry. There is no place for them, literally, to answer “the call of nature”.
What is the point of giving our children the Right to Education, if something as basic as toilets are not available in most schools? How can we expect women’s literacy rate to improve if young girls feel embarrassed to be in school after puberty because there are no toilets?
The Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2007–2012) foresees investments of 127,025 crore (US$24.1 billion) for urban water supply and sanitation.
There are budgets for building toilets. The Government of India has launched a Total Sanitation Campaign. Yet, either the funds available are not spent on building toilets, or if toilets are built, they become unusable within a short time because there is no water, or they get vandalised.
In most places the brand new toilets built with government money had already been vandalised. The doors to the cubicles were stolen, the toilet pans were shattered and all the taps had disappeared. Children had to run to their homes if they wanted to take a toilet break. Not surprisingly, adolescent girls would simply drop out, or not attend school for several days each month.
The Supreme Court has been forced to intervene on the issue. It is amazing how many times the most basic aspects of development and governance needs court orders. The court has given all states up to February 28 to build temporary toilets in all schools and permanent ones by March 31.
Bihar, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Arunachal Pradesh got thumbs up from the Supreme Court for over 90% compliance of the order for providing toilet facilities in schools.
Equally worrying is the fact that sanitation standards are not satisfactory even in the better-off schools where lack of funds cannot be an excuse. A survey of 304 Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) schools revealed that 265 of them were below par in sanitation standards.
Corporates also need to involve themselves in education, health and sanitation front.Instead of increasing CEO salaries by few crores they can work for children dying from lack of food.
Politicians like Maya and many others can built toilets for girls and women who have to face the daily indignity of life without toilets rather than building statues.
We individuals also need to contribute for improving the sanitary conditions and making India a healthier and clean country to live in.
