Sand on Soil

http://ngkjrs69.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/10/one-of-india-s-unsung-heroes.htm

There is no dearth of temples in India that you can find many of them even on all Indian highways but to locate a public-toilet is difficult. Unfortunately, this is the importance we give to toilets! We always felt that to defecate in public is nothing wrong! An interesting observation by the Indian Planning commission is as follows:

Nearly 80% of the country's population still either defecate in open or use unsanitary bucket latrines or smelly public toilets. This is true even in urban areas where hardly 20 per cent of the population has access to water/flush toilets connected to a sewerage system & only 14% enjoy water-borne toilets connected to septic tanks or leach pits. In rural areas a mere 3% of the population has access to sanitary toilets. This lack of adequate sanitation is responsible for diseases like Cholera, dysentery, typhoid, para-typhoid, infectious hepatitis etc that costs our lives.

In 1967, a 25 year-old youth named Bindeshwar Pathak was hunting for a job. A family friend promised him a good job, in the Gandhi Centenary Committee at Rs.600 per annum. The promised job wasn't there. The Centenary Committee’s term was nearing its end. Chief Ministers changed; Salaries were just numbers in books, no money received in hand. There was no Rs.600 job instead there was a temporary one at Rs.12 per month. Pathak hung-in there in hope of a 'permanent' job someday.

Rajendra Lal Das, a member of Sarvodaya urged Pathak to devote himself on scavenger liberation or Bhangi Mukti. Bhangis are those who removed the night-soil of others. Pathak went to live in a Bhangi colony in Bettiah. The three months there revealed that people who cleaned others' toilet did not care to keep their own, clean.

The only solution was to make toilets maintenance-free and re-train the scavenger caste for other occupations. The western-style flush toilet and centralized water-borne sewage system was too unaffordable for India. Pathak remembered the slogan of Gandhiji, 'tatti par mitti' (soil over shit) - compost it! The World Health Organization [WHO], many years after Gandhiji and after much research with all available solutions, said "out of heterogeneous mass of latrine designs, the pit privy emerges as the most universally applicable type." It was low-cost, needed little water, did not pollute (it instead turned waste into resource), offered privacy, could be built quickly, locally, and most all needed no scavengers to maintain.

Sulabh but not so sulabh! (Easy but not)
Sulabh Sauchalya Sansthan (Simple Toilet Institution) was formed in 1970. Pathak realized that the pit privy was suitable for not just rural but for urban India also. A deeply sloping toilet pan was developed to enable effective flushing with just a mug of water. Not only the water was conserved but there was no excess water to leach and pollute ground water. A standard, two pits and a toilet-pan, connected by a Y-channel was developed, which enabled quick switch soon as one pit filled, after say 6 months. Many variations of the Pan-Y-Two concept were developed to suit local conditions.

There was no money for Sulabh as the Governments were not keen. Grants were approved but never materialized. IAS officers promised much but were transferred, before they could act. One would list exactly the set of circumstances as reasons for not being involved in India. Pathak's obsession with scavenger eradication, however, made him hang in there.

After a three year wait, Pathak went back to selling home-cure bottles. But the Sulabh obsession never left him. Finally in the town of Arrah, Bihar, he approached a Municipal officer to retail the Sulabh idea. He had an order within minutes. The officer was enthusiastic and at once paid an advance amount of Rs.500 for two public toilets. Thus born India's first two-pit, maintenance-free privy in 1973 by Pathak using local masons.

From Arrah, also emerged the Sulabh business model that holds well till this day - Sulabh will insist on advance payments but will seek no subsidies, donations, loans or grants. Orders followed in quick succession and soon made the entire Sulabh operation self-sustaining. Soon in 1974, Patna got a grand public toilet with 48 seats, 10 urinals and 20 baths for Rs.60,000/-.

It became the talk of the town. All Sulabhs are pay-toilets, in order to make their maintenance sustainable. People were amazed that the public, that would dodge bus fares, would pay to use the toilet. Legislators and ministers visited the site daily to see this social miracle. Unfortunately, they did not learn the lesson therein: build a quality service and people will pay.

Sulabhs began to sprout everywhere. The first step was to get municipalities not to retrench them. Sulabh began training courses to enable scavengers take up carpentry, tailoring, etc. Some women have even become beauticians- some change that, for the once untouchables. It started a school for where English-medium courses are run to enhance their self-esteem. A research wing at Sulabh constantly develops related technologies. There have been bio-gas generators, water clarifiers, compost granulators, and of course new design variations of the Pan-Y-Two system. There's a toilet museum in the Sulabh campus in Delhi to make people comfortable enough to discuss the sanitation issue.

But the task is huge. Over 7 million toilets are still being scavenged by human beings in India. We need 10 million toilets to eradicate scavenging. Get a measure of that task by noting that in 30 years Sulabh has managed to build just 1.5 million of them. More people, groups and towns have to get active. The Sulabh model works.

How many of us are aware of Mr. Pathak? Despite the huge success, there are states that are unaware of Sulabh. Bindeshwar Pathak did not get the due recognition and I am sure most of the Indians might not have even heard of him. This is how we respect our heroes. We neither recognize them nor do we follow them. Pathak is an unsung hero. His services are to be glorified so that it inspires the younger generation!