Clean Water and Sanitation - Analysis
Authored by: Abhijith A, Kriti
Ahuja, Nikita Gambhir, Randhir Singh, Sayan Sen, Simran Kathuria
Group 9, Section C, PGDM (BM) 2019-21 Batch
Group 9, Section C, PGDM (BM) 2019-21 Batch
Currently, over 2 billion people live with the risk of reduced access to freshwater, making it a way of life. Poor countries bear the brunt of this, loosing lives to water-borne diseases, hunger and malnutrition. While the past decade has been nothing short of glorious in terms of increased access, clean water and sanitation are still luxuries that several only dream to afford.
The Goal is to achieve universal and equitable access to water, to end open defecation and reduce pollution by 2030. To sustain the ambition of universal access to water, it also aims to restore water-related eco-systems and strengthen local bodies through cooperation and investment at the grass-root level. Recognizing this, the government of India also prioritized the issues of sustainable management of water through its flagship programs including National Rural Drinking Water Programme, Namami Gange and Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
The scare of the approaching Day zero in Cape Town in the starting of 2019, and an imminently approaching day zero for the city of Bangalore has put the need for clean and sustainable water to be one of the most important agenda in India. Day zero represents the day when taps in the city will run dry and the citizens will have to queue to get water, and it this day was narrowly missed by Cape Town in April 2019
The National Family Health Survey, 2016 was used to calculate the WASH (Water Sanitation and Hygiene Index), which concluded that India severely lagged other developing nations in drinking water, sanitation and hygiene facilities. In 2010, India was rated to be the leader in Open Defecation which resulted in deep proliferation of communicable diseases. The rapid expansion and urbanization that India witnesses has placed the infrastructure facilities present under tremendous pressure, making it all the more difficult and urgent to establish safe facilities. To counter these effects, the Indian government had set up 3 ministries specifically to monitor the needs of water and sanitation –
a. Ministry of drinking water and sanitation
b. Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs
c. Ministry of water resources, river development and ganga rejuvenation
The several schemes launched under this ministry from the iconic Swachch Bharat Abhiyan to micro-irrigation for sustainable management of water resources with a goal to improve the indicators by 2022 signifies the importance of achieving the SDG Goal 6 for India.
As the consumers become more and more demanding, industries expand and new ways of production are adopted, the problem of degradation of environment and exploitation of resources becomes graver. Since, the companies use resources from the environment, it is required that they focus on reducing the negative impact created on the environment. Manufacturing firms contribute exorbitantly in water pollution; therefore, they are responsible to work to make clean water available to the people. The deplorable situation of water sanitation was visible when in 2018 the United Nations made a universal call highlighting the need to work for WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene), thus, implying that various entities in the nation need to assume responsibility to work to promote sanitation, clean water and hygiene across the world. Having assumed this responsibility to work for the environment and people’s health, various companies have contributed by the ways of campaigns, collaborating with NGOs, educating rural people by interacting with them etc. Companies have faced loss of productivity due to poor WASH facilities especially at the supply chain offices where the water supply issue is acute. Hence, it is imperative for the businesses to ensure proper drinking water and sanitation facilities in place.
The efforts of various FMCGs like Reckitt Benckiser and HUL, and global banks like Citibank. HUL has set up ‘Suvidha’: the community hygiene centre in collaboration with the Municipal body of Mumbai and a not for profit organisation, ‘Pratha’, to make provision of potable drinking water, laundry facilities and sanitation to the slum areas in Mumbai. This initiative addresses the problems faced by people due to high access costs of obtaining water. The centre works by harvesting roof water and recycling the bathing and household water for flushing toilets. RB has attempted to aid the government’s open defecation free campaign by launching a campaign ‘More than a toilet’ to highlight the importance of sanitation and hygiene and promote the use of toilets and hygiene among people. This initiative has addressed the various risks by people including diseases and deaths with focus on issues sexual harassment while defecating in open and time spent by school children hunting for a place where they can relieve themselves. Citibank has also contributed globally in achieving sustainable development goals by 2030 investing significantly in provision of clean water to people and advising governments to make investments to make clean water available to their citizens.
It is only possible with the collaboration from various business organisations with such mass reach, resources and impact that the country will be able to attain give the basic right of clean water and sanitation to all in the country as well as the world and make it a better place to live.
Looking at the current developments in the realm of clean water and sanitation brings us to the conclusion that although there has been a significant upliftment in the livelihoods of people across the globe, after this SDG was brought into action, there still remains a long way to go in order to make sure that this becomes a basic human right, as the United Nations has now labelled it.
Focusing on India, there are a few stark statistics that loom large, especially since the Modi government came in, particularly through the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan which aided the implementation of the WASH initiatives, across the country.
Since the start of 2014, upwards of 300000 people have toilets in their households, more than 25000 communities have eradicated the idea of open defecation, safe drinking water reaches to 175000 more people and Google Maps shows an increase in 42000 toilets, all indicating a forward thrust towards an improvement in the erstwhile ragged conditions of sanitation and clean water availability across the nation.
And yet, according to Water.org, 541 million people don’t get access to improved sanitation and 99 million people lack access to safe water in India. According to UNDP reports, 95% Indians still rely on free unreliable water sources. The World Resources Institute estimates above 100 million people living in areas having access to severely polluted water (59 out of 632 tested districts were marked safe). All of this shows the breadth of work that has to go in, towards bettering the situation in a country that houses almost a sixth of the world’s population.
With upwards of 684 million people in the ‘Deprived’ chain according to the NCAER-CMCR reports of 2010, it becomes increasingly difficult to bring sanitation and clean water to all across the board. Add to that the meagre 1.4% spend that India has on its GDP for Healthcare, the total monetary amount per deprived person, reduces to a tiny point and vanishes. Plus the cultural divide spanning the length of the nation ensures that no one-size-fits-all solution can possibly exist in the country.
One major notion that needs to be dispelled of, is how sustainability has huge long term costs. According to a report by Hutton and Andres in 2018, the ROI in WASH can be quite high, globally showing a cost to benefit ratio of around 5.5 for a rise in the levels of sanitation and 2 for a rise in the purity of drinking water.
Taking all of that into consideration, a few courses of action can be identified, which can go a long way towards raising the standard of water availability in many parts of the nation. Building on World Bank data from 2016, 1) local communities need to be involved throughout the process, right from inception because of the diversity in requirements, across the land. 2) raising the standards of technical support provided towards understanding and working towards this goal, given how technology can be leveraged to smoothen this process 3) increase in government spending, taking into consideration the reach of the problem at hand and the number of people being affected (as it stands, India spends very little compared to the developed countries, on healthcare and sanitation facilities) 4) increasing awareness about the need for clean water and sanitation at the grassroot levels in the country especially educating women who primarily act towards inculcating such values across generations in a setup such as in India 5) pushing for a greater contribution by corporations towards this cause, showing them not only the humanitarian viewpoint but also the economic benefits of the same.
One of the most important ways in which the country can go about pursuing this SDG is by collecting more information about the different sections of people who are being affected. Scientific research needs to be used to cater to these broad sections individually, in order to find a best fit solution that is unique and taps into the root of the problem. Local examples must be put forward to inspire people into not only accepting but also propagating this change.
In order to make sure that the data being aggregated is being used to the end that there is an attempt at finding viable solutions, proper monitoring systems must be put in place which can be used to review and revitalise data. This is important especially in a country like India where a lot of data is lost in translation. It also serves as a proper benchmark against which progress can actually be checked. To this end, the use of information and communication technology (ICT) can be an effective measure in collating and interpreting citizen data to form more robust models in the future.
The final issue is that of will and the very vision of an India that is free from the evils of impure water and a lack of proper sanitation. In order to find clean water, on average women spend 700 hours each year, carrying water for home consumption, taking away not only a lot of possible economic prosperity but also the possibility of something more self-fulfilling. It is in this idea that we need to be able to give this time back to such people, that all our interest in sustainable development is based. India is not one unit, it can be seen as multiple lands with varied interests and requirements, all brought under this unified umbrella. For ages people have paid for a lack of clean water and sanitation and they have paid in blood. It is only natural that now we take a step forward as a community in order to make sure that we grow together, leaving no one behind. This place can reveal itself as extremely cruel to those on the wrong end of the tracks and it is through cooperation and action that we can make it a little more forgiving. As Rodolfo Peon once said – Only the World can save the World.
Comments
Post a Comment