Introduction :- 

• Treatment capacity is available for only 37 per cent of the 62,000 million litres of sewage generated in urban India daily, thus creating a wide gap between sewage generated and treated. Untreated sewage is dumped into rivers or lakes, thus polluting the environment even more. The urban metros in India have a planned sewerage network with underground pipelines, pumping stations and treatment plants.
• India’s 7,000 smaller urban towns do not have any existing sewerage system since the amount of financial expenditure, skilled operators and electro-mechanical maintenance required is unlikely to be implemented anytime soon. Nearly 62.5 per cent of wastewater in urban India receives partial or no treatment.
• The nationwide sanitation movement of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has been successful in not just eradicating open defecation from numerous towns and villages across India, but is also creating a national consciousness in terms of sanitation and cleanliness.
• But the mere task of building toilets will do India no good, unless a National policy for treating sanitation waste is adopted at the earliest. Untreated sanitary waste has been dumped recklessly in our rivers and lakes for years, resulting in rivers like Ganga and Yamuna facing severe pollution crisis.

National Policy on Faecal Sludge and Septage Management (FSSM) :- 

On 2nd October 2014, the Government of India launched the Swachh Bharat Mission with the aim to achieve a Clean and Open Defecation Free India by 2019. Under this mission, the government plans to construct 1.52 million toilets in rural areas along the Ganga and 1.45 million toilets (private and public toilets) in cities that dot the river banks. This means that by 2019, over 30 million tanks or pits would have been constructed along the Ganga.

As per an in depth study conducted by CSE, these OSS will be producing 180 MLD of faecal slsudge and septage, which will eventually find its way in the Ganga. To address this issue, the Ministry of Urban Development is committed to helping states and cities in India to make rapid improvements in managing their faecal sludge.

In order to show commitment to addressing this issue, the National Policy on Faecal Sludge and Septage Management (FSSM) was issued by Ministry of Urban Development in February 2017 with support and inputs from the NFSSM Alliance, where CSE was also a member.

All Indian cities and towns become totally sanitized, healthy and liveable and ensure sustenance of good sanitation practices with improved Onsite Sanitation Services together with faecal sludge and septage management to achieve optimum public health status and maintain clean environment with special focus on the poor.

Objectives of the policy :- 

• The key objective of the urban FSSM Policy is to set the context, priorities, and direction for, and to facilitate, nationwide implementation of FSSM services in all ULBs such that safe and sustainable sanitation becomes a reality for all in each and every household, street, town and city.
• Ensure that all benefits of wide access to safe sanitation accrue to all citizens across the sanitation value chain with containment, extraction, transportation, treatment, and disposal / re-use of all faecal sludge, septage and other liquid waste and their by-products and end-products.
• Suggest and identify ways and means, including the methods and resources, towards creation of an enabling environment for realising safe and sustainable FSSM in India.
• Define the roles and responsibilities of various government entities and agencies, and of other key stakeholders such as the private sector, civil society organisations and citizens for effective implementation of FSSM services throughout the country.
• Enable and support synergies among relevant Central Government programs such as SBM, AMRUT and the Smart Cities Mission to realise safe and sustainable sanitation for all at the earliest, possibly by the year 2019.
• Mitigate gender-based sanitation insecurity directly related to FSSM, reducing the experience of health burdens, structural violence, and promote involvement of both genders in the planning for and design of sanitation infrastructure.

Features of the policy :-

• State level guidelines, framework, objectives, timelines and implementation plans to address septage management.
• Formulating strategy on central level to initiate capacity building for training on FSSM.
• Sanitation benchmark framework which shall be used by ULB?s to develop database, registry of certified on site sanitation system and robust reporting format.
• Funding for facilitation of FSSM projects and encouragement to increase public private partnerships (PPP).
• Achieving integrated citywide sanitation along with safe disposal.

Solutions:- 

• The problem of the waste not being contained, collected without manual labour, transported and treated safely is becoming graver.
• It is now time for a new approach. This has to be decentralised and different from the strategy being used to clean the Ganga, for which the government announced an outlay of ?20,000 crore in 2015. That strategy relies on large sewage treatment plants for riverside cities and towns. It is welcome that the CSE study is being followed up with a mapping exercise on the flow of faecal waste streams in individual cities. The results for Varanasi, Allahabad and Aligarh in particular should be revealing, since the collection efficiency for sludge in these cities ranges from just 10% to 30%.
• One immediate intervention needed is the creation of an inter-departmental task force to identify land to build small treatment systems for sludge, and to provide easily accessible solutions to houses that are currently discharging waste into open drains. A large State such as Uttar Pradesh provides the opportunity to demonstrate commitment to policy.
• Given the pace at which toilets are being constructed in urban India under the Swachh Bharat Mission, the introduction of policies and programmes in sludge management in timely and will help in the management of faecal sludge in urban India.

Conclusion :- 

• Viewed against the 2030 goal to achieve clean water and sanitation for all under the UN Sustainable Development Agenda, this depressing statistic shows how much work remains to be done.
• The National Urban Faecal Sludge and Septage Management (FSSM) Policy is a welcome move on behalf of the Ministry of Urban Development. The policy will lay stress on the setting up of faecal sewage treatment plants in cities and urban local bodies, as well as address the restructuring of sewerage systems in urban India.
• FSSM also takes care of a policy lacuna at the national level to address gaps in urban sanitation and lays down a clear vision and objectives to deal with faecal sludge and septage.
• All aspects of the business of sanitation need reform if India is to meet Goal Number 6 of the Sustainable Development Goals with egalitarian policies. Decentralised sludge management systems would bring improvement in the environment and reduces the disease burden because of insanitary conditions. Mapping of the flow of faecal waste streams in individual cities is required. Inter-departmental task forces are needed to identify land for building small treatment systems for sludge.
• Manual scavengers continue to be employed in violation of the law to clean septic tanks in some places and urgent mechanisation is to be done. The business of emptying faecal material using tanker trucks needs to be professionalised and de-stigmatised without the use of manual labour. By implementing the above lines in Letter and Spirit, Success here can transform lives.