Whether India is shining?

There won’t be many occasions when I woke up before the sun. Luckily, it was one of such days. Reason- I had to board the train to Karnal for attending my cousin’s wedding. It was not very good experience with Indian railways on that particular day. Why? No, No, No, don’t start accusing railways of being late against their schedule. This time it was me who is to be accused and blamed for. The train left the station just on time and had I been late by a whisker, would have definitely cursed railways for being on schedule first time in my life.

On the way, at the outskirts of Delhi were few villages which took my attention where the scourge of open defecation was clearly visible. Though Indian government has shown keen interest to eradicate the problem of open defecation and associated health problems from the country completely and despite the huge funds infusion through the various central government schemes, the dream of making India open defecation free seems far distant from reality. This was the situation in areas nearby the national capital, let others alone.

Despite the efforts at such a large scale, people defecating in open constitutes a large fraction of population due partly to unavailability of individual household latrines and partly to being unaware of the health hazards being associated with the problem. According to survey, poor families’ health and medicines expenditure accounts for 74% of out-of-pocket expenditure which ultimately forces them further towards BPL category.

Indian government had come up with well articulated, incentive based programmes such as ‘total sanitation campaign’ which is now rechristened as ‘Nirmal Bharat Abhiyaan’ to make rural areas flourish in healthy and clean environment where people especially women can lead a life with dignity. To give a fillip to the TSC, GoI came up with ‘Nirmal Gram Puraskar’ to recognise the efforts of the villages in the field of sanitation.

Under NBA, financial assistance to the BPL families for construction of individual household latrines is provided. The programme has more focus on information, education and communication and capacity building activities to increase awareness among rural people and generation for demand of sanitary facilities. 

The schemes announced by Indian government seem utopic and impeccable; nevertheless the success on sanitation front has been dismal. Where does the problem lie? Do the infallible seeming schemes have gaping holes? Or is it the implementation of scheme which needs to be pondered upon?

There are many instances where people own a latrine in the house still they prefer to defecate openly. The need of the hour is to create awareness among people about the health problems associated with the problem. Government and concerned ministry are doing its part by either announcing the much needed schemes or at many times by creating awareness through voluntary organisations and NGOs.

When government is so dedicatedly involved to eradicate this problem, the responsibility now lies upon people of this country to cooperate with the government. With the combined and cooperated effort only can bring an end to the shameful tag of being the country, host to the largest open defecating population. Be the loopholes in the implementation of the schemes or with the schemes itself, the panacea for the serious problem of sanitation must be sought as soon as possible and the country must done away with the scourge of open defecation.  Then only India can be ‘Shining India’ in true sense.