Integrating community participation crucial for inclusive sanitation

India’s urban sanitation journey has come a long way after the country embarked on the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) on October 2, 2014. In its efforts towards realising the United Nations-mandated sustainable development goal (SDG) 6 focused on clean water and sanitation, India has been striving to implement several strategies in the past, including SBM I and II, to achieve universal access to safe sanitation.  

Through SBM, India received a new thrust, with the focus shifting from sewerage networks to sanitation, putting in place a time-bound plan to improve access to toilets across the country, and therefore, construction of toilets leading to the elimination of open defecation in many cities.

Consequently, cities were declared Open Defecation Free (ODF), ODF+ and ODF++ under SBM II.

However, SBM I was lacking in discussions about the management of waste in these toilets, something that is necessary to achieve the goal of SDG 6. More importantly, about urban inequities and the need to address the barriers for building a climate resilient, inclusive and safely managed sanitation system.

The launch of SBM 2.0 in 2021 rightly focused on the next set of related and critical outcomes for safe sanitation by according priority to solid waste management. As the gap between wastewater generated and treatment is growing, a paradigm shift was noticed in SBM 2.0 guidelines, moving away from technology-centric and prescriptive policy on building infrastructure for intercepting and conveying sewage and treatment to focusing on treatment of all used water and on reuse of treated water.

The guidelines also focused to the well-being and safety of sanitation workers and ensuring access to toilets for all, including marginalised communities. To sustain the ODF status achieved during the first phase of SBM (2014-19), ODF+ and ODF++ were implemented under SBM II in 2021. The new targets cover the entire sanitation service chain and focus on complete waste treatment and safe reuse.

According to the Joint Monitoring Programme report covering data from 2015-22, the share of safely managed sanitation in India has increased by nearly 8 percentage points, compared to less than 5 percentage points at the global level.

Further, much of the improvement is because of septic systems (~9 percentage points). SBM is beyond building toilets, it is about building toilets that can be used by all and, most importantly, linked to the waste disposal and treatment systems. This much is clear.

But how will this be done? We cannot achieve true sustainability without inclusivity. Public as well as community sanitation facilities have a huge potential for incorporating inclusive provisions for the diverse marginalised groups.

In this context, the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) and the Urban Development Directorate (UDD) of Uttarakhand created the policy primer Building a Roadmap for Inclusive Sanitation Facilities for the State of Uttarakhand for promoting “Swachh evum sugamya’’ Uttarakhand, which encapsulates the state’s commitment to inclusive sanitation.

An extensive survey was carried out in two Uttarakhand cities, Dehradun and Ramnagar, to understand the current status of inclusion in public sanitation services, with regard to the requirements and aspirations of a broad range of users.

The policy primer’s focus is on public sanitation facilities — public toilets and the diverse needs of marginalised groups, particularly persons with disabilities, women, children and the elderly.

Data from at least 20 per cent of the public toilets in Dehradun and Ramnagar cities was collected for the study. It was found that 60 per cent of the public toilets surveyed in Dehradun lacked inclusive provisions.

Moreover, during the survey, the users emphasised the importance of fair compensation as a means to motivate and sustain the involvement of the community members in effectively managing the public toilets.

Better user ownership can be achieved by involving community-oriented self help groups, shopkeeper organisations, resident welfare associations, labour associations and any other active association in the upkeep and operation of the restrooms. In this case, the Trichy model can serve as a best practice.

Ramesh Negi, former chief secretary of Arunachal Pradesh and current president of the Integrated Mountain Initiative, believes that stakeholders such as safai karamcharis (sanitation workers), women’s groups, especially in slum clusters and rural areas, have to share and adopt the common goals of SBM and jointly strategise the step by step process to achieve them.

It is clear, that no amount of inclusive sanitation policy framework and universalisation of sanitation will translate into action without engaging the community. In fact, their engagement is crucial for building an inclusive and sustainable sanitation system. This is where the challenge lies.

While SBM I and II has created a link between the sanitation system and the community through swacch saathis and jal saathis, they can at best anchor some of the programmatic processes and cannot be expected to undertake any full scale social and community mobilisation that is required to ensure sanitation inclusivity.

Community duty bearers, who voluntarily serve on the community management and sanitation sub-committees at the slum-settlement level, and unite at the ward level as a single-window forum in Bhubaneswar and Jaipur, played a crucial role in achieving sanitation inclusion and enhancing the implementation of SBM I and II.

They have achieved the sanitation inclusion in a highly organic and sustainable manner, as they ensured that all vulnerable households and communities representing women, persons with disabilities, elderly, persons of diverse genders and adolescents are represented in the committees.

Their participation not only influenced access to sanitation services but also promoted the adoption of safe practices like mechanized desludging. Additionally, they worked to change mindsets and eliminate social biases against marginalised communities, including transgender individuals and sanitation workers.

In this regard, Jaipur has shown the way for developing a resource pool of persons with disabilities. In 2023, the Centre for Advocacy and Research (CFAR) facilitated a group of 84 persons with disabilities across eight spectrums of disabilities to register a disabled persons organisation — Atmanirbhar Sashakt Jeewan Sansthan — under the Rajasthan Societies Registration Act, 1958.

This resource pool emerged from an initiative spearheaded by 29 members of an informal of disabled persons group in 2021 who designed accessible hand washing stations and incinerators, which were installed in community and public toilets and government institutions in Jaipur.

With the involvement of these community leaders, in nine settlements of Jaipur, members from the Single Window Forum and Community Management Committee, representing diverse community, including transgender and persons with disabilities, collectively designed community toilets with each cubicle having grab bars, railings, western seats, tactile floor, sanitary napkin vending machine, incinerator and nursing and changing rooms for babies. The cubicles have been segregated into women / trans-women and men / trans-men and one reserved for children.

Similarly, by 2024 end, members of the Valmiki Safaimitra Sangathan, renamed Swachta Karmi Sangathan Jaipur, with 75 informal sanitary workers, were reaching out to peers across settlements. The members were educating other sanitary workers on occupational safety, encouraging use of PPE, linking them to government social protection schemes and services. Further, through the community radio, they were changing people’s mindset and preventing any act of indignity against these communities, striving to end all caste and gender-based discrimination.

The onus of responsibility towards a better water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) service delivery lies with the community themselves. To do this, we need to build the trust of the community in the system and do this by adopting three methods: Spurring community engagement, building capacity among community and building a community monitoring system.

The first point is aimed at enabling critical thinking and ability to engage. The second is aimed to foster the capacity to plan, build and operate / implement. The third should be a dashboard of waste infrastructures monitored daily by community members.

If done in harmony, the three action points collectively can allow a change in power balance allowing communities to have a human-centric improved WASH service delivery.

Acknowledgment: Building Accessible, Safe & Inclusive Indian Cities team of NIUA for doing the joint study with Sanitation Capacity Building Platform on Building a Roadmap for Inclusive Sanitation Facilities for the State of Uttarakhand.

Mahreen Matto, is the team lead of the Sanitation Capacity Building Platform at the National Institute of Urban Affairs. Akhila Sivadas is the managing trustee, chief functionary and a founding member of the Centre for Advocacy and Research.

Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth.