Clean India Mission: Sanitation and hygiene is the need of the hour

Almost half of the diseases in the developing and under-developing countries are caused by poor sanitation and lack of hygiene. As developing countries are fast becoming industrialised, having access to safe drinking water and sanitation is becoming a major challenge especially near rural areas and slum establishments. The government had launched ‘clean India’ campaign last year to make India dirt free and Open defecation free (ODF) by 2019. A year has passed, but unfortunately, not much has been done in this direction. 

Going by the UNICEF 2014 report, India tops in the list of countries where people still defecate in the open, exposing them to the soil and water-borne diseases which is the second biggest cause of death of children under five after respiratory infections. India is a country of villages. According to Census 2011, around 70% of India’s rural and slum population (650 million) are exposed to water-borne and vector-borne diseases due to lack of basic sanitation facility, unsafe water and unhygienic conditions.   

The latest estimates of the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP) shows about 32 per cent of the world’s population lacks improved sanitation facilities, and 663 million people still used unimproved drinking water sources in 2015.

UNICEF is working in more than 100 countries around the world to improve water supplies and sanitation facilities in schools and communities, and to promote safe hygiene practices. All UNICEF WASH programmes were designed to contribute to the Millennium Development Goal for water and sanitation. The goal - to cut in half, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe water - has been achieved globally, but the same target for sanitation has been missed by almost 700 million people.

For Clean India Mission to be successful, it is very important to involve active participation of people along with government’s initiatives. Other possible solutions can be:

•  Waste management – this issue has to be taken care of as soon as possible. Some innovative waste management solution needs to be worked out. The silicon valley of India, Bangalore is the worst hit city when it comes to garbage disposal.
• Sanitation and access to toilets – we need to accept the fact that about half of the people in India still defecate in the open. There are thousands of slums in India that do not have proper access to toilet and condition is worse in metro cities. Proper sanitation campaigns needs to increase both the coverage and use of toilets, as well as improved hygienic practices.
• Citizen participation- People have become habituated doing this for years and to change them, it is very important to trigger change in their behaviour and more so in their habits. Involving the citizens is the way ahead.

The target is 2019 and the pace at which we are progressing is not enough to meet the deadlines. One year has already passed and we are left with 4 years to achieve the goal. It is high time to speed up the actions to transform India into a healthy and disease free place to live in. 

  

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