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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

From plastic portable loos to Sanitary Bonds, India needs a latrine policy-V Raghunathan
-The Economic Times

After Mahatma Gandhi, Jairam Ramesh is the only national leader to be genuinely concerned that 65 years after Independence, some 600 million Indians in the 21st century continue to use open skies as their latrines. While Lee Kuan Yew continues to exhort Singaporeans to have cleaner loos, our ministry of railways thinks depositing human excreta all along the country's length and breadth, including deep into the cities - at the railway stations - is a smart way to balance its budget.

Clearly, as a country, we don't realise that turning our butts to the world is the same as turning our back to human dignity and civilisation. And yet, our sensibilities are quick to take offence when, for once, a minister talks sense saying India needs more toilets than places of worship.

Our builders and contractors mostly think it perfectly fine to have their workforce use the vicinity of the construction sites as open lavatories. Wedding receptions, political rallies and public parades rarely provide for toilets for the millions who throng the events. Those living in high-rises in the metros rarely provide for toilets for the army of drivers, milkmen and newspaper boys who serve them. Our railway tracks are, of course, the most-used squatting spots.

In 1999, the government, unmindful that an ineffective loo policy by any other name must smell as bad, renamed the Comprehensive Rural Sanitation Programme - as if a name-change by itself can alter reality - to Total Sanitation Campaign, in order "to bring about an improvement in the general quality of life in the rural areas and to accelerate sanitation coverage in rural areas to access to toilets to all by 2012 by motivating communities and Panchayati Raj Institutions in promoting sustainable sanitation facilities through awareness creation and health education".

In 1999, 2012 must have appeared too far away to worry about delivering the plan. Well, it is 2012 now, and according to 2011 census data, the campaign stinks more than the problem it was supposed to solve. Much money has gone down the non-existing flush, with little to show but heaps of night-soil around the country.

Moscow is dotted with tens of thousands of plastic portable garages for cars. Does India have a large-scale demand for plastic portable loos? The naysayers are in the same mould as those who proverbially assume no demand for shoes in sub-Saharan Africa, because no one wears shoes!

Perhaps India needs to explore portable toilets as one among a menu of solutions needed to address the sanitation challenge. True, creating a strong maintenance backup system in a country that is as short on habits of maintenance as on the habit of using toilets may be daunting. However, given Indian genius for jugaad, would it be inconceivable to hook up portable toilets to the sewerage system in every cooperative housing society, slum, marriage venue, building site, public ground and park, market, bazaar, rally route and what have you, which could help keep safeguard our environment and dignity? In fact, every municipality should be able to mandate such toilets as a compulsory urban sanitation requirement.

 Yes, the cost of such toilets may be prohibitive. At about Rs 30,000, the costs today may be steep. But such toilets have been manufactured internationally since the 1960s and the technology involved is simple: moulded plastic, with necessary sanitaryware fixtures. It would be a shame if we cannot mass-produce and sell the contraption for half that sum or less, given the potential volumes.

How big is the market for this sector? About half the Indian urban families have no toilets. That alone works to about 60 million families (of four each), and assuming about 10% of them may be willing to spend, say, Rs 15,000 per toilet, we are looking at a minimum market size of Rs 90,000 crore. And the rural market, which has a much higher population without toilets, may be at least as much, if not more.

The entrepreneurial potential for such toilets, like the STD booths of yore, carrying advertisements for toilet products on the outside, must be immense. If so, why hasn't the industry, which we would like to believe is smart, stepped in?Well, after all, until a decade ago, the toiletries industry in India hadn't thought of entering the deodorant and suntan lotion business, which in a hot, sunny and sweaty countrylike ours should have arrived way sooner. All we can say is our big businesses aren't all that smart.

India needs a latrine policy as much as it needs latrines. Perhaps a national taskforce under someone like Bindeshwar Pathak of Sulabh fame could be a good beginning. For starters, to make it really attractive for entrepreneurs, the sector could be provided income-tax, excise, VAT and GST exemptions. Credit from banks could be considered priority sector loans. The sector could be allowed to issue tax-free Sanitary Bonds. Employees working in portable toilets could be given tax-free salaries. If the Indian IT industry deserved tax breaks for its growth, Indian toilet industry deserves it far more. After all, the cost of such policies would be more than recovered through a cleaner environment, improved public health and lower city maintenance costs. That this would also help raise our dignity in the international community would be a collateral bonus.

But first, we must recognise the camel in the kitchen. Else, we will never even start looking for solutions.