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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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.