What is the issue?

• Within a span of merely four years (2014–17), the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) has increased household toilet availability from 42% to 64%, with over five lakh villages across 25 states/UTs being declared open defecation free (ODF).
• However, evidence shows that physical access alone is not enough to ensure usage, so much so that even the ODF-certified areas are not de facto ODF.

What are the shortfalls in the scheme?

• The showy display of ODF certification has overshadowed the fact that the essence of universal water and sanitation coverage is derived from the right to life(Article 21), guaranteed by the Constitution.
• There is no national legislation to protect these rights enabling the states to apply aggressive practices for earning an ODF status.
• This includes revoking of ration cards, electricity services and or shaming/penalising for open
  defecation, or diverting funds earmarked for education and communication activities for behavioural change to building more toilets.
• In such a top-down system, violation of rights is rampant, primarily because of the beneficiaries’ lack of ownership and the consequent lack of accountability of the service providers.

What do the studies reveal?

• A WaterAid study in 2017 found that almost a third of the functional toilets under SBM failed to prevent human contact with faecal matter.
• From the human rights perspective, sanitation is not only concerned about individual right to use facilities, but also the human rights of other people who can be negatively affected by inappropriate management of sanitary wastes.
• Though the government has launched the ODF Plus Initiative and the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation & Urban Transformation for waste management in rural and urban areas, the evidence of coverage is confounding.
• The National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey (2017–18) shows 70% of villages as having waste management systems in place
• However, studies by WaterAid in 2017 and WHO/UN Children’s Fund in 2015 found about 30% of the rural households and 9% of urban population, respectively, practising safe disposal of faecal waste.
• Nonetheless, the government should be given credit for bringing a socially anathematised issue like “open defecation” to the centre stage of the Indian policy discourse.
• But, this is a missed opportunity as a report by the UN Special Rapporteur, has identified that the SBM “contributes to violating fundamental rights of specific caste-affected groups engaged in manual scavenging.”
• It not only cuts across caste, but also gender and persons with special requirements like persons with disabilities, transpersons, and women, particularly with respect to the menstrual hygiene management of the latter, a study by the Aser Centre (2016) found only 62% schools having functional and usable girls’ toilets.
• Thus the Swachh Bharat Mission outwits rights-based development with lofty statistics.