Dinesh Kamath's Editorial "‘Basic sanitation for all’ is a ‘must’" that was published in Newsband

‘Basic sanitation for all’ is a ‘must’

Everyone has a right to basic sanitation and clean drinking water. But a big part of the world’s population continues to remain without improved sanitation. This is a terrible violation of basic human dignity.

 Around 15 per cent of the world’s population practise open defecation. India fares by far the worst, with some 627 million resorting to open defecation.

Sanitation plays a very essential role in tackling Infant mortality and maternal mortality and without a healthy environment and clean drinking water, women of this nation can't be pulled out of their dire straits.

The people living in the slum area have to resort to open defecation due to lack of facilities. Even if the slums are illegal, the government should provide them facilities. Hence, the urban local government in co-operation with the state and the central government should strive for the rehabilitation of the slum-dwellers and provide them with the proper housing and sanitation facility as every citizen has a right to a dignified way of life and personal liberty under article 21 of the Indian Constitution.

India, being the second most populated country in the world, it is very difficult to check the growing sanitation problem inflicting the society. But that should not be an excuse to shy away from this situation, as it concerns with dignity of millions of people. The policies framed in this regard do not reach the intended people in most cases. Secondly, there has to be concerted effort from NGOs and from the educated class to educate poor and illiterate community on the importance of sanitation and encourage them to save a part of their income to the construction of toilets. Thirdly, vast people of our country are homeless and hence have no other option other than to defecate in open. This has to be stemmed, with the government intervention by finding a living for these people through new policies.

But considering the state of policies in India and their execution, it is very likely that the existing trend continues to haunt the very morale and dignity of people. We must aggressively promote the toilet culture to ensure practices that lead to better drinking water availability and improve general health.

It is shameful that even after 66 years of independence we are still talking, reading and seeing the appalling lack of basic sanitation facilities across the country. Education about the problems of poor sanitation is needed, and simply having a toilet can do more to save lives and improve health than any alternative investment.

It is unbelievable to think that in India, a country now wealthy enough, roughly half of the people own phones, about half cannot afford the basic necessity and dignity of a toilet.

What is interesting on this relevant topic is the work that is being pursued by Bill Gates foundation; recently they held a "Re-invent the Toilet" competition towards building a “Next-generation” toilets to offer innovative sanitation solutions that can save and improve lives around the world. In fact the winners of these were given grants and prizes to develop from prototype to working model. We should work with Gates foundation to get these solutions for India.