Barely noticed and mostly ignored by the chatterati, a silent sanitation revolution appears to be underway in rural West Bengal, Rajasthan and to some extent in Madhya Pradesh. It appears that we may finally be turning a corner in our war against open defecation. Roughly half of India’s population- about 600 million-relieve themselves outdoors, a serious risk to health, resulting in illness and deaths of thousands of infants every year.
When the Prime Minister gave a call for Swachh Bharat on 2nd October, 2014, one of the components of this program was to ensure access to a sanitary toilet to every rural household. The target was to construct 6.84 crore new toilets and ensure reconstruction of 1.39 crore dysfunctional toilets in rural India by 2019.
The challenge was particularly severe in five states – Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Odisha -accounting for nearly 50% open defecation in the country as per the Census 2011. But toilet construction alone, though necessary, was by no means sufficient to guarantee an open defecation free India. Previous experience has shown that constructing toilets without inducing behaviour change in the community results in the toilets lying unused or being put to alternate non-sanitary usage.
What is refreshing about this campaign is that it appears to be less about toilet construction, and more about changing mind-sets, deeply held cultural beliefs and practices. What is even more heartening to note is that women and children have been consciously encouraged to be in the vanguard of this campaign. There has been enormous commitment to the campaign from the political leadership of these States (West Bengal, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh) right from the Chief Ministers to the Panchayat representatives at all levels and this commitment has visibly rubbed off on the government machinery which appears to have put its heart and soul into the program.
Every tool in the book that can build an emotional connect with the community has been deployed to trigger the required change; for example, appealing to the sense of honour and safety of women-folk, highlighting the ill consequences upon health and nutrition status of the population and also involving faith based mobilisation to inculcate good behaviour. This is one shining example of channelizing the faith based organization for good community and civic use.
By ensuring that the supply (of cash assistance and Toilet construction materials) matches demand push generated through the induced behavioural change generated through community engagement; all links in the program chain have been completed with little left to chance. Now the constructed toilets shall be used for the purpose they were constructed for stand fairly high chances. The peer pressure and also the Gram Panchayats decreeing fine for deviant behaviour is likely to ensure that this change can be sustained.
The Swachh Vidyalaya initiative of the Government – by its insistence upon on universal separate toilets for boys and girls in every school premise – has effectively complemented in further ratcheting up the momentum under the Swachh Bharat Mission; with schools becoming the seed for a larger societal behavioural change. It would be pertinent to note that the pace of construction of toilets in rural India after the launch of Swachh Bharat Mission has doubled, with nearly 1 crore toilets having been built this year compared to an average of 50 lakh toilets in the preceding years. We are now witnessing the emergence of a generation of young people who would find it difficult to even imagine defecating in the open.
As expected, the positive externalities of sanitary toilets on health and nutrition status of the rural population are already becoming evident through third party studies. For instance, Nadia District of West Bengal – which has been declared as 100% Open Defecation Free (ODF) – has reported a decrease in incidence of diarrhoea, besides significant reduction in the number of severely mal-nourished children.
However, several challenges remain. In States with highest prevalence of open defecation, such as U.P., Bihar and Odisha this campaign is yet to pick up significant speed. We do not seem to be getting much traction and attention to this program in these States.
If we have to have an open defecation free India by 2019, we need to effectively engage with these States. Keeping in view the number of toilets yet to be constructed in these states and consequent requirement of resources, we could do well to learn from the low cost sanitary latrine model in Bangladesh if we have to fulfil the dream of Swachh Bharat by 2nd October, 2019. The campaign is also not picking up steam in urban areas and needs to be given a decisive push. The momentum generated by this mission gives us reason to believe that India shall overcome.
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.