Swachh Bharat Abhiyan: Lessons to be learnt

In a previous article, I had mentioned the findings of a ground-level survey conducted by a credible agency that brought forth the ground reality in three Districts of different states. The questions that were asked were very simple ones:

Do you have a toilet at home?

Are you using the toilet?

These questions or their answers didn’t require any expertise. Families were selected randomly from three districts:

Kalahandi, Odisha

Nandurbar, Maharashtra

Bahraich, UP

The responses were received from 568 families in Kalahandi, 533 in Nandurbar and 83 in Bharaich.

All these three Districts had been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF). In fact, the entire country had been declared ODF well before October 2, 2020, the target date for ODF. The findings of this survey were startling.

Around 33.4 percent of the respondent said they had no toilet. This was incredible. What was even worse was that 54.8 percent of those that had toilets said they were not using the toilet. Now, if all this is true, how can these districts qualify as ODF.

There could be a possibility of toilets falling into disuse after being used for a while (though the number is pretty high) but how can a district be ODF if the toilets didn’t exist? Are these toilets existing only on paper?

The above sample size was a small one and perhaps not truly representative of what is happening in the country. Hence, in the article, I had suggested a larger national-level survey by an independent third party. Meanwhile, some more data has come from Karnataka.

Here, the sample size is much larger. This agency has looked at randomly selected 3426 families from 1061 villages out of 16 districts of the state. The findings here are not so “scary”.

In the overall context, 86 percent of respondents said they had toilets and 80 percent are using toilets. Thus, both in terms of toilets and their usage, Karnataka is doing much better than the other states surveyed earlier. There are, however, some questions that need to be explored:

Even at an aggregate level, 14 percent of households do not have toilets and 20 percent are not using toilets. How is it so if we have already declared the state and country ODF?

There are 6 percent of respondents that have toilets but are not using them. Why?

At a disaggregated level, in districts like Gadag, 39 percent of respondents do not have toilets. How was the district declared ODF? Similarly, 25 percent of respondents in Chitradurga said they do not have toilets. The situation in some other districts also does not warrant their declaration as ODF.

An enormous amount of money was also spent on constructing toilets in various government schools. These schools have been closed for a while on account of COVID. As the schools re-open, it would be necessary to make these toilets functional all over again. There is no survey in the public domain about the functionality of such toilets. The money spent cannot be allowed to go down the drain.

It was heartening to find unlike the indifference displayed by some, the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation responded immediately to the last article and, without being defensive, assured to get a larger survey done to assess the ground reality.

This response and approach also explain why the scheme is doing better than most of the other programmes of the government. There is desire to assess with an open mind. There indeed is a huge lesson in this for other departments.

There is also another hidden message here. Why rush to claim success even before it has actually happened? The Swachh Bharat Mission was doing and perhaps still doing extremely well at least in the rural areas. But why claim the country has become ODF when it hasn’t?

The desire to go to town with such claims and announcements do an enormous amount of disservice to the programme itself. Once the announcement is made at the highest level, it becomes extremely difficult for the officers below to say something to the contrary. Why not face the truth and correct the shortcomings, if any?

Some institutions/organisations can perhaps live with just making grandiose announcements and get away with delivering only glitzy roadshows because they serve a particular purpose. Their slick presentations and roadshows keep those that matter happy.

However, most of the departments will have to follow the spirit the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation has displayed. They can’t and shouldn’t neglect the ground reality.

–Anil Swarup is former Secretary, Government of India and author of the book 'Not Just A Civil Servant'. The views expressed are personal. Click to read his other columns