Sanitation and Hygiene

Provisions relating to water and sanitation are among the 61 items listed as ‘State Subjects’ under the Seventh Schedule in Part XI of the Constitution of India. Despite being catalogued as the responsibility of the states, the Union Government pitches in to supplement the former’s efforts.

What does slashed funding for the water and sanitation sector in this year’s budget mean? Is the government’s claim that the states will get more money because of the latest Finance Commission recommendation, spot on? Sona Mitra and Kanika Kaul of the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CGBA) shed light on these at the All India Convention on the Right to Sanitation.

Bihar is working hard to achieve total sanitation. Sanjay Kumar Sinha, of  the Public Health Engineerng Department spoke about Bihar's efforts in this direction during a conference on the Right to Sanitation.

The responsibility of implementing the Swachh Bharat Mission is shared between the Ministries of Urban Development and Drinking Water and Sanitation. While the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) is responsible for sanitation in urban areas, the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MDWS) is in charge of the same in rural India.

SOPPECOM and Water Aid have been working for the last three years on the right to water and sanitation. They have engaged in consultations with people across the nation, and used these discussions to articulate their campaign demands. The campaign has also come up with a wealth of resources on the topic but what does this right to sanitation entail? Mamata Dash explains.

Centre launches National Rural Drinking Water and Sanitation Awareness Week

In partnership with the Government of Karnataka, Arghyam ran a communication campaign aimed at creating a demand for improved sanitation. 

On-site sanitation systems are options which help treat the waste at source, rather than dealing with it several miles away in a centralized manner. In the absence of sewerage systems and piped supplies, communities have to devise decentralized ways to deal with their shit. Some of the most common on-site sanitation systems include septic tanks and pit latrines.

With over 620 million defecating in the open in India, do we need a new approach to curb this practice? The force of habit is such that even households with toilets have around forty percent of adults defecating in the open. But, does curbing open defecation necessarily lead to significant improvements in child health outcomes like diarrhoea, anaemia, parasite infection and growth?

The 73^rd amendment to the Constitution of India made Gram Panchayats the hub of all activities in the rural sphere. It gave legitimacy to Panchayat institutions, devolving powers as well as finances for their effective functioning.