SDG 6 - Clean Water and Sanitation - A Challenge in India

By:

Aditya Sanket (B19003)
Ambar Laad (B19005)
Kshitij Gupta (B19025)
Jayant Jain (B19022)
Pranav J (B19033)
Saransh Kejriwal (B19043)

BM-A, Group 3
PGDM (BM) 2019-21,
XLRI, Jamshedpur

Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.

What do we think of when we talk about improved living standards? A better home, better education, better services, better healthcare, and an overall better lifestyle. While this thought may have come across your mind, on the other side of the spectrum, even today, despite being a basic human necessity, 40 percent of the global population does not have access to safe drinking water and 2.4 billion people lack access to basic sanitation services such as toilets. Sustainable Development Goal 6 considers the universal applicability of the law and has set targets to achieve a better world for the human population.

The special thing about this SDG is its inter-linkage with the other SDGs. For instance, it helps in improving health (SDG3) and renewable usage of water can help make cities become more sustainable (SDG11).

The major targets within SDG 6 are:

- Achieve universal as well as equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for everyone.

- Achieve access to adequate as well as equitable sanitation and hygiene for everyone and end the practice of open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of girls and women and those who are in vulnerable situations.

- Improve the water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping of hazardous chemicals and materials. Also, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater while substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse across the globe.

- Substantially increase the water-use efficiency across all sectors and to ensure sustainable withdrawals and supply of freshwater to address the issue of water scarcity and substantially reduce the number of people who are suffering from water scarcity.

- Implement an integrated water resources management practice at all levels, including, but not limited to through trans-boundary cooperation as appropriate.

- Restore and protect the water-related ecosystems, including forests, mountains, wetlands, rivers, aquifers and lakes.

- Expand in terms of international cooperation and capacity-building support to developing countries in water- and sanitation-related activities and programmes, including desalination, water harvesting, water efficiency, recycling, wastewater treatment, reuse technologies.

- Strengthen and support the participation of local communities in both improving water and sanitation management activities.

Relevance to India

India, with a 1.3 billion strong and a relatively young population, is probably where this SDG goal is the most relevant.

According to the SDG website, the proportion of Indian households with access to improved water sources had increased to 90% from 68% (1992) , just three years ago. Also, 63.3% of rural households and 19.7% of urban households were not using modern sanitation facilities. But keeping these as key priorities, the government has taken steps to ensure betterment through several flagship programmes like Swachh Bharat Abhiyan to clean India, the National Rural Drinking Water Programme, and Namami Gange.

While India has made giant strides when it comes to drinking water and sanitation goals, it is still yet to reach acceptable levels of water quality. The National Rural Drinking Water Program has planned to reach 90% of households in the rural areas with piped water supply and 80% rural households with water tap connections by 2022.  The Estimates Committee of Parliament (2015) has noted that piped water supply was present only in 47% of rural dwellings, where only 15% had household tap connections. Besides, Fluoride and other chemical contamination of groundwater is also a concern which will be looked into . Hence In 2018-19, the scheme was allocated Rs 7,000 crore, accounting for 31% of the finances of the Ministry of Drinking water and Sanitation. 

The Swachch Bharat Mission has been a success with 100% Open Defecation Free status achieved in February 2019. Almost 600 million people have been provided with basic sanitation facilities and have been influenced to change long-standing habits. But ensuring that they are used continuously without deviation and regular use and repair is taken care of, is a challenge. 

Meandwhile, the Namami Gange scheme has started 63 sewerage management projects in the states of the Gangetic plain , River surface cleaning , Effluent cleaning especially along industrial cities like Kanpur and its tanneries , Ghat management etc.

The biggest challenge however, is the last mile implementation and a squalid bureaucracy which often results in contrasting ground realities.

A recent visit to a village in Jamshedpur showed us the ground reality. At a place that depended on a pond for its water supplies, the variety of activities which were being performed could prove to be detrimental not only to the natural water body, but also to the people and life under water. The pond once played host to a variety of fish, which were no longer there. The water was dirty, and clearly not fit for consumption. However, the people in the village were using it not only for the daily anthropogenic use, but also for drinking. Imagine a similar village, wherein a new factory or office is set up. How important would it be to check if the office is not degrading the water body in any way? Will the people have an accessible platform to raise their voice? This shows how important these goals are for India, where situations like these are not unheard of.

Business Implications and Responses

Although typically seen as a role to be fulfilled by the government, businesses must also ensure that they work in people getting access to clean water and sanitation facilities. This is especially true considering that access to clean water and sanitation is a building block to achieving the other sustainability goals.

With regards to this goal, we see a wide disparity between high-income countries and lower-income countries; the difference is quite differentiable when we compare statistics for some parameters. The share of deaths from unsafe drinking water is close to 0.01% across the developed world, while in India it is 5.75%, and in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, this number reaches 10%. This has implications for businesses who are looking to expand operations into the developing world; they must make sure that they do not exacerbate the situation any further.

Businesses that work in food processing, especially those that source raw materials from farms are at an important stakeholder in the fulfilment of this SDG. Globally, over 70% of freshwater goes into agriculture and without sustainable usage, it will be impossible to meet future needs. It is estimated that by 2050, the world population will grow to 9 billion and feeding this population will need at least a 15 percent increase in water withdrawals.

In June 2014, a Coca-Cola plant was temporarily shut down in Varanasi after protests over the amount of groundwater it was extracting. The company later appealed to the National Green Tribunal and got the closure revoked but it also has had to cut its water usage ratio by approximately 47% from when it started operations. 

One company that has directly incorporated this SDG into their plans is Hindustan Unilever (HUL). Through various brands under it, HUL has tried to bring better water management and sanitation practices to the forefront: an example includes Surf Excel’s “Do Bucket Paani rozana hai bachana”, a campaign that came out in 2005 and promised better efficiency of detergent powder thus saving wastage of water. Another example would be Lifebuoy’s nationwide campaign for promoting handwashing in rural areas. Unilever also runs an initiative known as “Prabhat” wherein it contributes to the development of local communities around manufacturing locations. These sites have affected over 1.7 million people in 30 locations.

HUL also has a not-for-profit company called the Hindustan Unilever Foundation which runs the “Water For Public Good” programme. Here, HUL partners with NGOs in villages across India to support knowledge initiatives in water conservation. All these activities are in line with Unilever’s global Sustainable Living Plan (USLP).

Analysis and Suggested Path

While the government may play a more active role towards this SDG, that is only the case if one looks at the measures taken that will improve drinking water and sanitation facilities. A major part of achieving this objective however, is that businesses and factories in India should not be acting as negative players. This means one carefully needs to consider actions taken to not have a negative impact as well. While one factory might not be helping clean the nearby water body, it can very well help by not deteriorating its state. This means better processes for waste management and waste treatment may be required. Moreover, this also means the company might be asked to reduce water consumption, or to treat water temperature before releasing it into water bodies. A system to implement this must be put into place. This could include a penalty for not adhering to the limits. But then, these limits cannot be generic in nature, as every area will have different problems. This brings the issue of using different threshold values for different places, and maintaining a standard across areas. One thing that shouldn’t really be practiced is offsetting your clean goal objectives by doing better somewhere else. It is not the sum total of the effort that counts. Doing better at one place should not allow one to be less concerned at somewhere else. 

Bringing back our village example from before, there are a few solutions that we found interesting. A major deterrent in providing clean drinking water and sanitation facilities in rural areas are the costs and maintenance. Who will bear the cost? If a shared solution is brought up, who will be responsible for managing it? A continuous supply of electricity is also a major factor in determining what all solutions might be feasible. In fact, what we found is that a few companies have taken this up as an opportunity to build innovative products to cater to these demands. These include low-cost gravity based water purifiers from popular names like Eureka Forbes. Additionally, there have been innovative products like ceramic water filters and UV Ray-based purifier systems. All these devices are not only low on cost, but also take into consideration the challenges that they may face, such as lack of electricity. 

That being said, because the prices are low, profit margins are low too. And also, most companies do not have the distribution networks to make their products available at places of need. This requires an active co-operation between the government and such companies so as to facilitate distribution and use of such products. Moreover, this should be decentralized in nature, so as to ensure better implementation. 

The Infosys foundation, on the other hand, has  gone a few steps ahead with its rural sanitation and heritage restorage initiative. Under this initiative, a number of toilets will be built in rural areas in Karnataka, and hygiene factors like water supply, cleanliness and maintenance would be taken care of. 

Overall, there has been quite some progress made in terms of making safe drinking water accessible to all; between 1990 and 2015 the proportion of the population with access to an improved source of drinking water has increased from 76 percent to 91 percent. However, as we step into the next decade, stakeholders across the spectrum must do their part for protecting the most critical resource of the blue planet.

References:

The Guardian. (2019). Indian officials order Coca-Cola plant to close for using too much water. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/18/indian-officals-coca-cola-plant-water-mehdiganj [Accessed 5 Dec. 2019].

Policy, P. and Use, T. (2019). Facts on Hindustan Coca-Cola’s Plant Operations at Mehandiganj, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India - Coca-Cola India. [online] The Coca-Cola Company. Available at: https://www.coca-colaindia.com/newsroom/facts-hindustan-coca-colas-plant-operations-mehandiganj-varanasi-uttar-pradesh-india [Accessed 5 Dec. 2019].

Use, T. (2019). Facts on Hindustan Coca-Cola’s Plant Operations at Mehandiganj, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India - Coca-Cola India. [online] The Coca-Cola Company. Available at: https://www.coca-colaindia.com/newsroom/facts-hindustan-coca-colas-plant-operations-mehandiganj-varanasi-uttar-pradesh-india [Accessed 5 Dec. 2019].

Hul.co.in. (2019). [online] Available at: https://www.hul.co.in/Images/uslp-india-progress-report-2017-21may2018_tcm1255-522773_en.pdf [Accessed 5 Dec. 2019].

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