In last few weeks, I have been traveling to western Uttar
Pradesh. Met officials right from the District Magistrates to panchayat
secretaries. Have also got chance to interact with villagers in general and elected
representatives. Some great young minds recruited through Tata-GoI
collaborations. The most recent activity that we did is training masons on two
leach pit technology toilets. Have been reflecting on some key questions which
people often poses in sanitation.
1. Subsidy has done disservice to the cause of sanitation
This
is typical question asked prominently by CLTS practitioners. Officials in
higher bureaucracy specially has picked this question and don't miss a chance
to ask anyone who interacts with them. I have also been interacting with CLTS
practitioners - would rather call them trainers. They have pretty pragmatic take
on this whole issue. They clearly highlighted current CLTS has limited
imagination and hit dead end at triggering. Their experience in community mobilization post
triggering indicated, people can't sustain their changed new behaviour of stopping
open dedication in the absence of proper toilet. Proper toilet costs money.
2.
Can community do without subsidy?
Actual
community mobilization ought to start once community is triggered. Govt. has
huge deficiency there. Govt. has mobilized grass root functionaries with
limited success and the entire energy is channelized towards constructing the
toilets. Once construction of toilet starts there lies real challenge. Can
community be mobilized to construct the toilets at large scale on their own.
The answer is emphatic NO with the current engagement arrangements. 5 days of
community triggering and thereafter leaving the community one with one
messenger mostly a lower rung govt. worker is too much to ask for. They along
with Sarpanch/Pradhan ends up facilitating construction mainly of two leach pit
toilets. As experiences suggest that is not aspiration toilet for the community
and the one they want costs way beyond their financial capacity. Therefore, sporadic engagement only during campaign period and forcing
cheap toilet choices is bound to fail.
Recent
studies from Bangladesh indicated open defecation free status could only be
sustained where there was CLTS approach for brining awareness and subsidy
working together. In the community where only CLTS was done without giving them
subsidy had no real gain. That gives a compelling evidence, that CLTS+ Subsidy
is best option in resource poor setting.
3. Choice of toilets
I
have been working in the sector for over a decade. Have closely seen and read
the basket of choice for family planning services under RCH programmes. In the
name of choices govt. mostly ended promoting terminal tubectomy over all other
methods. Choice of toilet technology is mostly guided by classic learning
methods known in behavioural psychology - imitation. We initiate our peers and
cultural traits are mostly transmitted from upper classes /strata to lower
strata. Conceptual framework of westernization and sanskritization are case on
point for most of our acquired behavioural traits. So, whom we normally imitate-
rural imitates urban, poor imitates rich and we mostly mimic their behavioural
traits both material and otherwise.
Predominantly
all actors in toilet construction supply chain practice sanitation in very
different way. The one who does actual construction (read Masons and labourers)
don't have toilet at their home, the one whose house is centre of this great
sanitation experiment have aspiration of something very different. The one who
is managing the construction have different toilet at home. Therefore, all cues
in their environment support a very different aspiration. Common aspirational toilet
is spetic tank. Maximum incentive which govt. could leverage for each toilet is
Rs.1200. The promise of the same is already under severe strain due to
inability of central govt.to fund all toilets. This incentive money doesn't
help in constructing toilet of their choice and that seriously undermine their
participation in construction and thereafter it's use.
Some direction to move forward
- Modeling of two leach pit toilet use by
rural elites
Taking cues from
sociology and behavioural psychology, can government think of modeling two
leach pit toilets by rural elites. Many districts did establish Sanitation
Technology Park somewhat with the objective of showing the visitors live models
of various toilet technology. However, it has limited use towards training
masons or taking people for exposure.
If rural elites
specially those who are involved in the supply chain of entire construction
process start constructing and using this toilets, people at large would start
using and adopting the technology.
- Using masons as messenger
Masons are the most
effective messenger as far as the technology choice go.
Their words of
assurance about the sustainability of two leach pit toilet go a long way in
ensuring its use. In the recent training out of 20 masons not many were
wholeheartedly convinced on the sustenance of this technology. Precise reason
was they had never seen this technology working in their neighbourhood. In the
semi- finished toilets only two masons- Ahsan and Sah Alam (In the photo) were
involved intensely in learning nuances of construction by doing hands on. Other
participants did participate but their level of participation was very low.
Engineers were all
using different technology for use in their households and looked more like
doing their job than having any aspirations for propagating the technology.
