What is the status of hygiene and sanitation practices in India?

The survey data of the India Human Development Survey report throws light on many significance of India’s hygiene and sanitation practices. This fact has been accepted that having poor sanitation and a hygienic situation can result in severe diseased conditions.

As the second most populated country, poor hygiene and sanitation practices can be seen in the form of the absence of toilets, especially in households of villages that result in not putting a stop to open defecation and failure in supplying clean water. These practices have the ultimate impact on spreading bacterial infections, diarrhea, and many more diseases. Lack of resources such as water, sanitation products, and hygienic practices are the primary reason for the increasing rate of disease and death.

Looking at how serious such issues can get in the future without any solid practice implementation, the Indian government, along with global organizations and socially conscious entrepreneurs, have taken many revolutionary inaugurating steps to improve the situation of sanitation and hygiene in India. Some of the major categories were WASH India, Swachh Bharat Mission, etc. Let’s get to know how they have addressed the issue of India’s poor hygiene and sanitation practices.

o   Advancement of WASH in India

The WASH scheme stands for “water, sanitation and hygiene,” which focuses on making sustainable approaches to address the public health issues within international development. With the implementation of WASH in schools and various health care facilities, it now seems possible to end the poor hygiene and sanitation practices in India. WASH is making a great contribution in reducing unhygienic practices. Here are some advancements of the WASH scheme.

o   Improvement in Sanitation

As mentioned above, the practice of open defecation is directly linked with the increasing rate of death and illness within communities. People can’t access safe water when they feces in open fields, roads, or other outdoor spaces. Feces contain dangerous pathogens that can make people sick, which is why WASH made it one of its sanitation components to end open defecation and improve community health.

In India, WASH, in collaboration with Sunidhi Toilet Project, constructed easily installable, self-cleaning public toilets. Moreover, WASH contributed to building quality restroom facilities in schools, which can also be accessed by disabled pupils; separate boys and girls toilets with ideal facilities for female menstrual hygiene requirements. 

o   Appropriate hygiene practice

The hygiene component of the WASH scheme in India focuses on implementing healthy habits in communities. Without doing proper hygiene practices, and sanitation facilities, exposing communities to an easy supply of safe water means easy contamination of water, which can make people sick.

WASH, along with various NGOs, government organizations, philanthropists, took initiative for convincing people to have a toilet in their home, making proper infrastructure for establishing toilet facilities, keeping the area around their home clean, educating people for behavior changes, and responsibilities for upkeep & maintenance of the toilets.

o   Access to clean water

According to various survey reports, about more than 6% of the Indian population lack access to safe water, and about 15% of India’s population practices open defecation. This suggests that their drinking water must be exposed to harmful pathogens, or they must travel a long distance to access safe water.

WASH has made many initiatives for locally availing water stations to access clean and quality water. By 2019, in association with the WASH scheme, iJal Safe Water Station, installed 319 stations to reach over 319 communities, which has made a tremendous contribution in improving water security scarcity.

o   Swachh Bharat Project implementation

In 2014, Swachh Bharat Mission was launched with the goal of making India free of open defecation within five years of its implementation. This mission has made critical progress in the country with the aim for adequate and equitable sanitation access for every citizen, especially women and girls.

This project was financially shared between the central and state governments, which are not only funded for building infrastructure for improving hygiene and sanitation practices, but also social and behavior change campaigns and information, education, communication materials. Swachh Bharat project is then made “everyone’s business’ by including in every ministry to priorities and streamlining sanitation programs within their sectors

As an impact, schools, healthcare facilities, both government and private sector buildings, and other spaces constructed an adequate amount of toilets. Moreover, it also ensures that there are enough toilet facilities for both boys and girls; and girls should be provided with necessary hygiene. The government also mobilized over 6 lack community volunteers and trained them in understanding the importance of safe sanitation and spreading the message in their respective communities, and monitoring the progress.

As a result, Swachh Bharat Mission has helped with improving hygiene and sanitation practices with 100 million rural households and about  500 million residents to have easy access to toilets across 630000 villages. Further, the survey also reports that about 8 million full-time jobs have been created through this mission.

With various resources and advanced schemes, India is slowly getting over its status as a poor hygienic and sanitation country. A lot of entrepreneurs, philanthropists, global organizations, and local government initiatives are making it easy to achieve such long standing goals.