sanitation drive in west bengal dr. sutapa ray 20 new.pdfapril, 2015, nadia became the first...

Sanitation Drive in WeSt Bengal

Dr. Sutapa rayAssociate Professor in Philosophy

Prabhu Jagatbandhu College

Soumyadip rayDepartment of Economics

Maharaja Manindra Chandra College

abstractWest Bengal’s sanitation drive pre-dates Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and its rural sanitation cov-erage is one of the highest among eastern zone states in India. In November 2013, the Hon’ble Chief Minister of West Bengal, Smt. Mamata Banerjee had launched a sanitation drive called Mission Nirmal Bangla (Pure Bengal) nearly a year before the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was launched in October 2014. In West Bengal, sanitation became a priority in the early 2000s when local administrations were bestowed upon the responsibility to convince rural residents to build toilets. While never overtly successful in its sanitation mission, West Bengal’s sanita-tion coverage in 2014 was a respectable 60.28 per cent, better than many other states.Keywords: Sanitation, nirmal bangla, toilet, rural

introDuctionWest Bengal’s sanitation drive pre-dates Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and its rural sanitation coverage is one of the highest among eastern zone states in India. In November 2013, the Hon’ble Chief Minister of West Bengal, Smt. Mamata Banerjee had launched a sanitation drive called Mission Nirmal Bangla (Pure Bengal) nearly a year before the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was launched in October 2014.At that time with sanitation coverage of just 58.19 per cent, West Bengal’s rural areas suffered from lack of individual household toilets and adequate sanitation facilities in schools. West Bengal’s non-participation in the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was frowned upon initially, but Mission Nirmal Bangla’s success has since earned global recognition from UNESCO, as Bengal has taken strides towards becoming an open defecation free (ODF) state.

In West Bengal, sanitation became a priority in the early 2000s when local administrations were bestowed upon the responsibility to convince rural residents to build toilets. While never overtly successful in its sanitation mission, West Bengal’s sanitation coverage in 2014 was a respectable 60.28 per cent, better than many other states.

On November 2013, the state government of West Bengal announced its intentions to make rural West Bengal open defecation free (ODF) within five years. On April 2014, West Bengal launched Mission Nirmal Bangla, a comprehensive rural sanitation programme and with the launch of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, the state converged the efforts of the Central sanitation mission with that of its own. The objectives are similar to the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan with priority on building of household, public and community toilets, and eradication of open defecation.

In terms of rural sanitation, the progress in West Bengal has been phenomenal. Over 50 lakh

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toilets have been built in rural districts in West Bengal, which is the highest number of toilets constructed across any state in the eastern region. The state did not have any ODF districts till 2015, but in two years, has managed to make seven districts completely ODF. Nadia was the first district to go ODF in 2015, with over 3.8 lakh toilets built. State level verification in three more districts of East and West Burdwan and Howrah is currently going on and the state is confident of declaring these three districts as ODF by end of October and seven more districts as ODF by the end of this year. All 2,158 villages situated near Ganga have attained the ODF status, under Namami Gange programme. The state has set August 2019 as the deadline for making all 23 districts ODF.

Sanitation has been a priority for the government and we have managed to not just construct toilets but make people aware of the importance of safe sanitation practices. The district administrations have used a combination of community led total sanitation, multiple awareness campaigns, walkathons etc. to help people realise the necessity of safe sanitation. That is what has translated into ground level success, said SonaliDatta Ray, Additional Mission Director, MissionNirmal Bangla.

Indeed, involvement of communities, non-governmental organisations and arranging for unique awareness programmes has been the hallmark of Nirmal Bangla. In its quest to make Nadia ODF, information and communication activities were held across the district on a regular basis. In February 2015 a 122 kilometres long human chain with 2.17 lakh people was formed to create awareness on toilets and sanitation. Nadia’s success has also been praised by UNICEF for its focus on successfully bringing in behavioural change.

On the urban front too, West Bengal’s performance has been impressive. 76 out of the state’s 125 towns and cities have become ODF, and the state government has stated that 24 more are to join the list by December 2017, taking the total tally of ODF cities and towns to 100. Districts which require urgent sanitation intervention in their towns have been identified by the administration for construction of public toilet, community sanitation complexes and household toilets.

The state is well on track to achieve the ODF target by August 2019, as toilet construction is going on at breakneck speed in 13 remaining districts. With its toilet construction mission going well, West Bengal will be expected to go for the ODF plus status and sustain the behavioural changes the state has succeeded in bringing in among its rural and urban population.

The West Bengal government brought all state-run sanitation projects under the Mission Nirmal Bangla, launched on October 2, 2014. While the Nirmal Bangla project draws financial support from the plans sanctioned to states under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, the state government has set its own targets and put administrative mechanism in place, leading to a healthy competition for cleanliness. In less than a year of starting this project, on 30th April, 2015, Nadia became the first district in India to get open defecation – free (ODF) status. Nadia launched an aggressive sanitation project in October 2, 2013, under the name SobarSwachaghar or toilets for all. In about 18 months 347,000 toilets were constructed in the district. The plan, which has now become a showcase project of the state government, was carried out by the district administration with the help of UNICEF. An intense planning and monitoring system made the Nadia sanitation project a success. Multiple stakeholders were involved including SHGs and school children who created a peer pressure on the society

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towards cleanliness. The monitoring system was very strong which worked through weekly review programmes and GIS monitoring. By March 2015 there were 109 sanitary marts. Taking Nadia as a model, UNICEF was engaged by the state government of West Bengal to conceptualise and prepare a branding and communication strategy, among other things, to launch the Nirmal Bangla Project along the same time when the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was launched by the Hon’ble Prime Minister ShriNarendraModi.Moreover, to celebrate the efforts in Nadia, April 30th will be observed as Nirmal Bangla Divas across West Bengal. It is to be noted, however, that under Nirmal Bangla, 75 percent of funding comes from the central government. Further, whereas the Central Government has set 2019 as the deadline to have a toilet in each household, the State Government has given each district the flexibility to declare its own deadline. Thus while Nadia has been declared ODF in 2015, other districts are expected to follow suit. At present the state’s coverage of sanitation programme is nearly 95 percent in rural areas. So, with more than 95 percent sanitation coverage, West Bengal is all set to go Open Defecation Free by March 2019.

With 95 per cent sanitation coverage in its rural areas, West Bengal continues to be one of the most successful eastern states in terms of rural sanitation coverage. A total of nearly 57 lakh toilets have been built in Bengal since November 2013. 13 of West Bengal’s 23 districts have become ODF, boasting of 100 per cent sanitation coverage. 9 out of the remaining districts have rural sanitation coverage of above 85 per cent. Purulia, an eastern district of the state is the only district which has sanitation coverage of less than 65 per cent. The state also boasts of over 33,000 ODF villages, which account for 81 per cent of the state’s rural area.Mission Nirmal Bangla has progressed smoothly and the state is confident of achieving its target of becoming open defecation free by March 2019. Last year, there were seven districts which were ODF and this year, six more districts have been verified and given the ODF recognition. The focusof the State Governmnetnow is completing the toilet construction activities in the remaining districts by March 2019, and then verify all the remaining districts to declare them ODF by December.

The West Bengal government has appointed a district coordinator for each of the 23 districts in the state, who directly observe how well Nirmal Bangla’s objectives are implemented in each district. The district coordinators regularly meet and get updates from the district collector, who is responsible for ensuring that construction of toilets and awareness campaigns related to safe sanitation are sustained in the districts. Even an ODF district like Nadia, which got the distinction of becoming West Bengal’s first ODF district, continues to host awareness programmes on toilet usage.“While the Mission does have a deadline, we have instructed district coordinators and officials to keep up with the awareness activities, rallies and holding of competitions related to sanitation and hygiene. Behavioural change can take a long time to come, and we do not want people to go back to open defecation despite having access to toilets,” said SonaliDatta Ray, Additional Mission Director, Mission Nirmal Bangla.

While rural sanitation is progressing well in West Bengal, the urban counterpart is slightly slower. Since West Bengal is not a part of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, the Centre’s flagship sanitation mission is not monitoring the urban progress made by the state in terms of toilet construction. Urban local bodies are responsible for toilet construction in the urban areas. Over 2.80 lakh individual household toilets have been constructed in the state in the last five years, along with 300 community and public toilets.

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Major cities in the state, including the capital Kolkata, are yet to improve their sanitation infrastructure as compared to the number of public toilets required in urban areas, West Bengal is considerably short. This was reflected in this year’s Swachh Survekshan (Urban) rankings, when 25 out of West Bengal’s 29 participating cities were ranked among India’s top 50 dirtiest cities.Construction of toilets is the responsibility of urban local bodies and the government asks for updates from them regularly. The state government plans to construct at least 500 public and community toilets across all urban bodies by 2019, which will bring down open defecation instances considerably.

Urban waste management is another area, where the state lags considerably. Less than 10 per cent of West Bengal’s daily generation of 8,600 tonnes of waste is processed, accounting for most of it going to landfills or other open spaces. Nearly 1,400 tonnes of waste remains uncollected in West Bengal daily.The government is also planning to begin a more centralised waste management system, where garbage collected by the civic bodies will be directly transported to waste processing plants. “After the Swachh Survekshan results, we have called for strict action against municipal corporations found lacking in their duties”, said Suman Bhattacharya, Joint Secretary, West Bengal Urban Development and Municipal Affairs.

Despite the lag in urban sanitation and waste management, West Bengal’s progress in nearly eradicating open defecation from its rural areas will please the state’s authorities. In districts like Nadia and Birbhum, ODF plus activities have been taken up by district authorities, who are involving the locals in waste management and segregation, for the districts to take the next leap from being ODF to ODF plus. But for West Bengal to become a holistically clean state, the state will need to work towards replicating the success of its rural sanitation in its urban sector, be it improving toilet access or waste management.

Below is given a ‘Report Card of West Bengal in Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’:

Regarding Rural Sanitation Coverage in West Bengal it is seen that only 58.19% of rural Bengal was covered by sanitation facilities in 2014 which dramatically increased to 95.22% in 2018. The performance of West Bengal was laudable in this sphere. (Source: Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Government of West Bengal, Ministry of Housing and Urban affairs, Government of West Bengal).

In case of individual household toilets being constructed since 2013, the figures are remarkable once gain. In Rural Bengal 56,98,310 toilets have been constructed since 2013 whereas in Urban Bengal 2,80,269 toilets were constructed since 2013. It is clearly seen that the urban figures are way below the rural figures which implies that the government needs to take steps in this regard. (Source: Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Government of West Bengal, Ministry of Housing and Urban affairs, Government of West Bengal).

Coming to the results of Open Defecation Free initiative of the Government it is seen that 13 districts, 33,373 Villages and 16 Urban Local Bodies are ODF and the target of West Bengal government is to go ODF by March 2019. (Source: Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Government of West Bengal, Ministry of Housing and Urban affairs, Government of West Bengal).

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Participation in Swachh Survekshan 2018 turned out to be a dampener for West Bengal, as

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8 out of India’s 10 worst performing cities belonged to the state. If Bengal’s performance in Swachh Survekshan was a disappointment, the state can breathe slightly easier as New Town, the planned city in capital Kolkata’s northern fringes has been recognised and rewarded as a Green City. The honour was bestowed upon New Town by the Indian Gold Building Council (IGBC), a building certification organisation which is a part of Confederation of Indian Industries (CII).

Waste management has been prioritised by the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA). The NKDA has launched a fleet of 20 waste management vehicles with Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, which enables municipal officials to keep a track of the vehicles when they pick up garbage and transport them. The NKDA officials have set up a monitoring centre, which checks if all the garbage collection vehicles visit their designated areas and collect and transport waste accordingly.

Apart from waste management, NKDA has also focused on improving other civic amenities in New Town, thereby making the city suitable for residential purposes. IGBC has praised the three water ATMs installed in the planned city, which enables people to collect water throughout the day. Electric buses have also been introduced in New Town and cover all areas in the township. Over 20 such buses with 32 seats in each have been rolled out and four charging points have also been set up across New Town. With over 20,000 people using New Town’s bus fleet daily, the electric vehicle experiment has worked well for Kolkata’s green city. With a new cycle-hiring scheme all set to be introduced, New Town may be the trendsetter that Kolkata and West Bengal desperately needs to perform better in the coming editions of Swachh Survekshan.

aBout MiSSion nirMal BanglaOn 2nd. October, 2014, The Government of India, restructured the erstwhile Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA) as Swachha Bharat Mission (Gramin) with the mandate of making the country ODF by 2nd October, 2019. Government of West Bengal had already started its journey towards achieving ODF status for the rural areas of the state since the World Toilet Day celebration on 19th of November, 2013. After the launch of Swachh Bharat Mission by the Government of India, the State Government decided to converge its efforts with the new restructured programme towards realizing a common objective of achieving ODF and to make a cleanlier environment & surroundings under the state brand name of “Mission Nirmal Bangla”. For reaching the objective, an all-out effort was started through constituting a state Mission under the aegis of the Panchayats and Rural Development Department in the State Government. Mission Nirmal Bangla has the following major thrust areas –

• All the households to have access to safe sanitation

• All members of all households use the toilets

• Hand washing at critical times to be practiced universally

• All places of public congregation to have community sanitary complexes

• All households to have their solid & liquid waste management plan in place

• The village surroundings are to be kept clean

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The Baseline Survey conducted in 2012-13 had indicated out of 51 lakhs rural households above 67 lakes as not having toilets. While providing access to sanitation to this huge left out households was a challenge to the administration which the present State Government accepted with elan, approach to the issue underwent a paradigm shift. The whole focus of the programmewas removed from construction of toilets to achieving Open Defecation Free (ODF) rural units-from villages to Gram Panchayats culminating into ODF Districts. Towards achieving this objective, from the highest to the lowest levels of administration, all Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI), all non-government stakeholders, teachers, students & common people had taken a pledge to lend their bit and be an important contribution.

Within the renewed intervention, construction activities is interspersed with a rigorous and sustained behaviour change communication at the individual and community level so as to ensure that using toilets for defecation becomes the universal norm in the villages. Different districts of the state have adopted different strategies for fulfilling their own ODF objectives.

Another positive attribute for the successful surge in the programme was the strong political backing that the Mission Nirmal Bangla initiative received since its beginning. The Hon’ble Chief Minister and the Hon’ble Minister-in-Charge of the nodal department had been the greatest inspiration to the implementing bodies across the tiers. The first Nirmal Bangla Diwas celebration on 30th April, 2015 had seen, besides the state level celebrations, massive programmes at all districts and Gram Panchayats where political & PR functionaries participated in huge numbers.

The enthusiasm in the Mission Nirmal Bangla implementation engulfed all the districts in no time after its launch. All the district implementing agencies had developed their own innovative approaches for stopping the menace of open defecation in the respective districts. While the construction of toilets was mostly carried out by the Sanitary Marts, massive IEC, BCC & IPC were carried out simultaneously for triggering change of behaviour. Nadia district became the first ODF district in the country after the launch of Swachh Bharat Mission.

iMpact of SWachh Bharat MiSSion in WeSt BengalIn an online survey it has been found that 53% citizens find their area & city cleaner in West Bengal after completion of 4 years of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

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On the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, the biggest gift that the nation can give him, is to show him that we are collectively working towards achieving his dream of a clean India. Much improvement has been made in the last 4 years, nationally as well as in the state of West Bengal, but a lot still needs to be done to achieve the complete objectives of the Swachh Bharat Mission or the Mission Nirmal Bangla. The state of West Bengal has performed well in rural sanitation but is lagging in urban sanitation and waste management. The government needs to try harder towards a cleaner state and take steps towards creating more awareness about cleanliness among the citizens of the state.

sanitation drive in west bengal dr. sutapa ray 20 new.pdfapril, 2015, nadia became the first...

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