Determinants of rural sanitation in India and implications for public policy (original) (raw)
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Sanitation Accessibility in Rural Households of Rohtak District- A Village Level Analysis (2011)
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2022
Access to proper sanitation facilities has been a major challenge in India especially in rural areas where lack of proper 2011, just 31 percent of rural households have latrine facility. While in Haryana, only about 56.1 percent of rural households have latrine facility within premises. Specifically, Rohtak district account for about 58.4 percent rural households having latrine facility within the premises. Wide regional variations are observed in the availability of sanitation facilities among the villages of Rohtak District. Village Manja scores the lowest among all villages where only 6 percent households use latrine within premises rest 94 percent households practice open defecation. While Sasrauli is the best performing village in the district where about 98.8 percent households use latrine facilities within the premises. Using the secondary data from House listing and Housing Census (2011), all the villages have put into three categories-High, Medium and Low availability of sanitation facilities. The present paper examines the existing status of sanitation facilities at village level in terms of use of different type of latrine facilities in rural households of Rohtak district. The findings of study present a gruesome picture of sanitation infrastructure as 100 villages come under low and medium categories. Still, there were 28 villages where more than 50 percent households practice open defecation. A comprehensive and integrated approach involving various stakeholders of the government-gram panchayats, municipalities, state government and central government along with community participation can only make villages of Rohtak district open defecation free in real terms.
Households’ Toilet Facility in Rural India: Socio-spatial Analysis
The 2030 agenda on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) highlights the importance of sanitation and sets the Goal #6: ‘Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all’. While rural households in India have witnessed a marginal improvement in access to toilet facility in recent decades, they continue to face high levels of deprivation along with spatial and socio-economic disparities and exclusions, which have been highlighted in this article using data from Census of India, National Sample Surveys and Baseline Survey. Determinants of households having access to latrine facility in the house have been estimated using an econometric exercise and contribution of caste-based factors of the gap in access among various social groups have been estimated using decomposition technique on household-level information from National Sample Survey data. Households located in backward regions and belonging to the weaker sections of society, such as poor, wage labourers, Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes, have been found to be the most deprived and excluded. Thus, there is an urgent need to pace up the developmental efforts for rural sanitation to achieve the SDGs, along with complementary measures to focus on backward regions, weaker sections and socio-spatial position of households in rural India.
Water Policy
Access to improved drinking water and sanitation has been declared a fundamental right by the UN General Assembly. However, around 25 and 50% of the global population lacked access to safely managed drinking water and improved sanitation in 2020, respectively. India, the second most populous country in the world, has around 3.7 and 31% of its population without access to improved drinking water and sanitation, respectively. This paper explores the factors determining a household's access to improved drinking water and sanitation in India, using India Human Development Survey (IHDS) II data. The results indicate that urban households with bigger family sizes, with fewer rooms, married but uneducated household heads, belonging to forward castes, were more likely to have access to improved drinking water. Similarly, households with married female heads, belonging to forward castes, small household sizes, older aged heads with primary education, from Non-EAG (Empowered Action Group)...
Availability and Utilization of Sanitation Facilities: A Micro Study from Rural Tamil Nadu
Shanlax International Journal of Economics
About 4 billion citizens around the world lack access to proper sanitation, meaning they are forced to practice open defecation. The health consequences for those living without using toilets are severe. Approximately 480,000 children under5 year age die annually from diarrhoea caused by unsafe water and a lack of access to proper sanitation. That’s almost 2,000 kids a day. In developing countries like India, 57 per cent of households do not have a toilet. And in Tamil Nadu mainly, it was at 52 per cent. In India, civil societies and local government play a vital role in rural development, and they are responsible for transforming the socio-economic features of the villages in India. The central and state governments are implementing many schemes like the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC), and so on to protect child and women’s health. Both governments to give reward for full achievement of gram panchayats like Nirmal Gram Puraskar (NGP) and rewar...
India has not been able to achieve its MDG target on sanitation. The paper analyses the debate whether government should focus on community participation or heavily subsidize construction of toilets.
Social determinants of environmental health: A case of sanitation in rural Jharkhand
The Science of the total environment, 2018
An estimated 56% of households in rural India defecated in the open in 2015, making India the most significant contributor to the global sanitation burden. This cross-sectional study uses data collected in 2016 from 499 households in rural Jharkhand to understand the constraints of latrine adoption and drivers of sanitation preferences (plans to adopt toilets and willingness to pay for toilets). Focusing on a region with a large tribal population, the study examines two types of predictors, namely structural factors (objective socioeconomic, sociocultural and ecological characteristics) and psychosocial drivers (perceived unaffordability of toilet, hygiene and sanitation knowledge, perceived health risks, attitudes, both descriptive and injunctive social norms, and perceived water stress). We find that structural constraints related to educational, economic and sociocultural inequalities predict toilet ownership. Low sanitation rates can neither be attributed to a lack of expressed ...
Access of the Poor to Water Supply and Sanitation in India: Salient Concepts, Issues and Cases
2010
Access to safe water is necessary for lives and livelihoods. In India, a mid-term assessment reveals that the country has already met its MDG (Millennium Development Goal) in terms of expanding access to water infrastructure although in the parallel subsector of sanitation progress is falling far short of the mark. In reality, most basic observations indicate that water supply coverage is not as good as the figures show while national sanitation continues to be poor even after almost six decades of efforts to eradicate open defecation. It argues that economic, technical, institutional as well as social factors constrain access to safe drinking water and proper sanitation in India for both the urban and rural poor, and that coverage figures do not reflect this restricted access. It finds that, increasingly, communities are being required to manage their own water and sanitation schemes, not just in rural areas but in urban ones as well. There are definite advantages to such an instit...
Status of Sanitation in the Rural Areas of a Health Unit District, Tamil Nadu, India
National Journal of Community Medicine, 2017
Background: Sanitation is the key to better health. Even towards the end of the millennium development goal era, provision of sanitation still continues to be a challenge especially in rural areas. Objectives: The present study was undertaken to describe the availability and utility of sanitary latrines in study population and to assess knowledge / practice of households about use of latrines. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out in Cheyyar taluk of Tamil Nadu which comprised of three blocks. Stratified random sampling technique was followed to draw samples from all villages in the three blocks. From each stratum, 20% of the villages were selected. In each village, 10% of the households were again selected at random, with individual household being the sampling unit. Results: Availability of in-house toilets in the study area was only 22% with 73% utilization among them. With regard to community toilets, the availability and utility was grossly inadequate. Knowledge about importance of toilet use was more among households with toilets when compared to their counterparts. The knowledge about government giving subsidy to construct toilets was also lacking. Conclusion: The efforts to improve sanitation needs to be sustainable with stress on IEC and community participation.
The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene, 2015
A large and growing proportion of the global population rely on shared sanitation facilities despite evidence of a potential increased risk of adverse health outcomes compared with individual household latrines (IHLs). We sought to explore differences between households relying on shared sanitation versus IHLs in terms of demographics, sanitation facilities, and fecal exposure. We surveyed 570 households from 30 slums in Orissa, India, to obtain data on demographics, water, sanitation, and hygiene. Latrine spot-checks were conducted to collect data on indicators of use, privacy, and cleanliness. We collected samples of drinking water and hand rinses to assess fecal contamination. Households relying on shared sanitation were poorer and less educated than those accessing IHLs. Individuals in sharing households were more likely to practice open defecation. Shared facilities were less likely to be functional, less clean, and more likely to have feces and flies. No differences in fecal c...
International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health
Introduction: Monitoring of sanitation programs is often limited to sanitation access and coverage, with little emphasis on use of the facilities despite increasing evidence of widespread non-use. Objectives: We assessed patterns and determinants of individual latrine use over 12 months in a lowincome rural study population that had recently received latrines as part of the Government of India's Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) in coastal Puri district in Odisha, India. Materials and methods: We surveyed 1938 individuals (>3 years) in 310 rural households with latrines from 25 villages over 12 months. Data collection rounds were timed to correspond with the seasons. The primary outcome was reported use by each member of the household over the prior 48 h. We classified use into three categories-"never", "sometimes" and "always/usually". We also assessed consistency of use over six days across the three seasons (dry cold, dry hot, rainy). We explored the association between individual and household-level variables and latrine use in any given season and longitudinally using multinomial logistic regression. We also inquired about reasons for non-use. Results: Overall, latrine use was poor and inconsistent. The average response probability at any given round of never use was 43.5% (95% CI = 37.9, 49.1), sometimes use was 4.6% (95% CI = 3.8, 5.5), and always/usual use was 51.9% (95% CI = 46.2, 57.5). Only two-thirds of those who reported always/usually using a latrine in round one reported the same for all three rounds. Across all three rounds, the study population was about equally divided among those who reported never using the latrine (30.1%, 95% CI = 23.0, 37.2), sometimes using the latrine (33.2%, 95% CI = 28.3, 38.1) and always/usually using the latrine (36.8%, 95% CI = 31.8, 41.8). The reported likelihood of always/usually versus never using the latrine was significantly greater in the dry cold season (OR = 1.50, 95% CI = 1.18, 1.89, p = 0.001) and in the rainy season (OR = 1.34, 95% CI = 1.07, 1.69, p = 0.012), than in the dry hot season. Across all three seasons, there was increased likelihood of always/usually and sometimes using the latrine versus never using it among females and where latrines had a door and roof. Older age groups, including those aged 41-59 years and 60+ years, and increase in household size were associated with a decreased likelihood of always/usually using the latrine versus never using it. The leading reason for non-use was a preference for open defecation. Conclusion: Results highlight the low and inconsistent use of subsidized latrines built under the TSC in rural Odisha. This study identifies individual and household levels factors that may be used to target behavior change campaigns to drive consistent use of sanitation facilities by all.