COMMENTS

The first step should be to enact a law that makes open defecation punishable.

The first step is to enforce having toilets mandatory wherever there is habitation. The people who defecate in the open live on the streets or in shanties where bulding a toilet is a luxury, so the question to be asked why allow such housing to be put up? Why arent construction firms being penalized for not providing temporary housing & toilets for their workers? Why arent wards audited for the kind of housing that is coming up without toilets? What is local corporation doing in those wards? Even if you put the guy in jail he has to go every morning. Where will he go?

If at all penalty needs to be levied it should be on the local panchayat/corporation health department for allowing these to happen, then they will ensure usable toilets are built & people are coerced into using it. If you dont penalize authorities they will not enforce housing rules, swindle money or build dirty toilets & people will end up on the street again.

This problem exists in Bangalore as well, mostly construction areas. Lets think outside the toilet here, if a citizen complains of people defecating on the outside, they can complain to a central ombudsman who will hold the local ward health officer responsible for approving a house without a toilet or allowing construction without toilet provision for workers or for not provisioning a clean usable public toilet. Penalty will come from his salary or from the corporation coffers or jail if they cant pay.

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First of all, the article is more in general about the hundreds of millions that defecate in the open in rural India where due to ancient /medieval practices, toilets were never built as part of the household, even in rich households due to the presence of vast fields nearby, & this fact should have been mentioned as part of the writeup.

In urban areas, this problem is not so acute, except in say Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata & few other urban centers. Even here, people from the slums /shanties (who are mostly poor /unemployed rural migrants) are largely responsible. The slums /shanties are usually unauthorized encroachments that the municipalities have found very difficult to tackle due to many political obstacles & the huge resistance for relocation /rehabilitation.

Consider two urban examples - Mumbai CST station & the KSRTC bus stand at SBC - both have clean toilets, but one finds people (mostly bus & auto/taxi drivers - who again, are rural migrants) urinating at the boundary walls nearby.

Toilets when built, are always clean, but people, as users ruin it, unless there is an attendant capable of maintaining order. If millions of toilets have to be built, then there will have to be millions of capable attendants to oversee the toilets as well. This is similar to traffic monitoring - when a cop is present at signals, some order is maintained, but if he is missing, there are people that will jump signals.

To fix this problem, the onus must be on people as well as municipalities. If only municipalities are told to ensure clean toilets, people will get away by messing up the toilets at will, as has been the norm so far. Thus, the real challenge is to start changing mindsets & the thinking of people. This is going to be very hard, but without the fear of penalties on users, it may well be impossible.

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Meanwhile, between Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (GoI), Dept of Biotechnology (GoI), and Bill & Belinda Gates Foundation, they have announced the "Re-invent the toilet challenge", which should hopefully change the sanitation scenario in the country in the years to come. Details may be accessed here.

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Even though this is an old thread, since it showed up on the praja front page due to some recent activity i read through the old posts. Wanted to add my perspective to this - the urinating/defecating problem can be attributed to lack of proper living accomodation among the very poor migrant laborers probably; but that does not explain the general dirtiness all around. There is a simple explanation - public cleanliness is not a cultural priority; don't agree with that?; just look around...the country's cities reflect that. Sean Paul Kelly's article reflect that truth.

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Around 60 crore people defecate in the open," plan panel member Mihir Shah said, admitting to the need for a change in government's approach. The panel is of the view that toilets should be constructed for hamlets too, apart from aiming to build toilets for households. The thinking is also to build bathrooms along with toilets.

Source

The first step should be to enact a law that makes open defecation punishable.

Planning Commision allocating budget for sanitation schemes & such education is fine, but if they chooes to finance building of toilets in every hamlet, it may result in another gigantic scam.

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