Ramra is a typical west Uttar Pradesh (UP) village some 20 kms east of Panipat and lies on the left bank of the river Yamuna. Some 5, 000 voters (kudos to the democratic identity that rural India today prefers) strong, it is a good religious mix of Muslims and Hindus living in a single village spread over three identifiable hamlets. 

We were in Ramra to facilitate two back to back workshops, one dealing with ground water recharge techniques and the other dealing with principles and practices of eco-sanitation. These are part of our ongoing effort for the river’s restoration under an almost five year old work, presently assisted through a twinning program with the UK-based Thames Rivers’ Restoration Trust (TRRT). Through these capacity building measures we plan build capacities of the local groups called the Nadi Mitra Mandali (NMM) to address various issues related with the river including the chronic issue of non-point sources of pollution in the river. 

Jairam Ramesh in his latest political avatar is the union minister of rural development having recently relinquished his earlier ‘colourful’ stewardship of the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF). 

Endowed with a masterly gift of the gab and an attractive persona with a flowing mane, Ramesh is a natural front page grabber whose every utterance, at least in his MoEF avatar, was avidly lapped up by an indulgent media. Even as the minister in charge of rural development, Ramesh is media wise, not doing too bad, with his most recent public utterance of “It being a ‘national shame’ that 58 percent of global open defecation population lived in India”, hogging limelight stretching from the Hindustan Times in India to the Washington Post in the US. Ramesh’s sense of shame it seems emanates not just from the shame (more so for the women folk) associated with the lack of privacy in the act of open defecation, but also with the nation’s less than desired progress achieved under his ministry’s total sanitation campaign.  

The United Nations 2010 review of the millennium development goals (MGD) also echoes the sentiment expressed by Ramesh that “With half the population of developing regions without sanitation, the 2015 target (of halfing the year 2000 population without access to basic sanitation) appears to be out of reach”.  

Yes sir, it indeed is a matter of national shame, but just hold on.

Our recent experience at Ramra has been revealing. There is a functional and in many cases a recently constructed toilet in almost every second house in Ramra. But in the opinion of the sanitation expert who conducted the eco-sanitation workshop and later as part of the field work audited some of these toilets, it was far better that the people went ‘out in the fields’ rather than used these toilets. The devil lay in the half-hearted design and poorly laid toilets that would further contaminate their surface and ground water and ambient air and thus imperil their health. His fears were echoed by Bhim, our field researcher, who lamented that “My village was mosquito-free till these toilets arrived under a government scheme”. 

According to the expert, “When these people go out, and even if they do not cover their ‘act’ with mud, the action of the sun would ensure that the ‘remains’ would soon become one with the soil”. But here, in these poorly planned and poorly laid septic tank toilets sans the essential soak pit to soak the emerging contaminated water and a vent pipe to take away the smell, both the surface water and the ambient air are offensive and harmful and are a readymade recipe for spread of water borne diseases. That there is little attention given to the minimum distance necessary between a toilet and drinking water source like a hand pump, the danger of ground water contamination from even a soak pit looms high.    

So, unless along with a much needed push for meeting the sanitation targets in form of number of toilets raised, there is a massive sensitisation and training program for the beneficiaries and the masons, including a statutory prohibition on poorly laid toilets, we could be seeing widespread squalor and disease in our villages already ‘covered’ under the total sanitation campaign.