From Sarita Thakore Centre for Environment Education (CEE), Ahmedabad

Posted 27 May 2008

I work for the Centre for Environment Education. We are implementing ‘School- Water, Sanitation, Hygiene' (S-WaSH) in 21 schools of Raipur, Chhattisgarh.

From Gyanendra Mishra, UDAAN, Aligarh

Posted 19 April 2007

Dear Sir/Madam,

I work for an NGO called UDAAN in Aligarh and neighbouring districts. We provide training to Gram Pradhans, motivators, village functionaries and other stakeholders on water and sanitation issues. We also support the Government in the Total Sanitation Campaign in mobilising the community for construction of low cost leach pit toilets at village level. Additionally, we implement force lift handpumps in schools to lift and store water without motor and electricity. This has made many school toilets usable, which had become defunct due to non-availability of water.

From Bhawna Vajpai, The Loomba Trust, New Delhi

Posted 7 July 2008

I work for the UK based Loomba Trust, committed to upgrading and constructing water supply, sanitation and hygiene facilities in schools under its WASH initiatives. We aim to work in 1,000 schools across India (rural areas and small towns) in collaboration with state governments.

From Indira Khurana, WaterAid India, New Delhi

Posted 20 June 2007

You are aware that the Nirmal Gram Puruskar (NGP) has been instituted to “add vigour” to the Total Sanitation Campaign. In 2007, the National Committee on Nirmal Gram Puraskar selected 4,437 Gram Panchayats and Block Panchayats from 22 states for awards under NGP. The number of award winners has risen from 40 in 2005, 769 in 2006 to 4437 in 2007. These awards were given by His Excellency the President of India Shri A P J Abdul Kalam.

From Lizette Burgers, UNICEF, New Delhi

Posted 20 October 2008

The South Asia Conferences on Sanitation (SACOSAN) are high-powered regional ministerial conferences that discuss sanitation. They help develop a regional agenda on sanitation, enable learning from experiences and plans for the future. The objectives are to accelerate sanitation and hygiene coverage, and enhance peoples’ quality of life in keeping with the Millennium Development Goals and the commitments made at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, 1992. Till date, two conferences have been held at Bangladesh (2003) and Pakistan (2006).

From Benny George, Department of Drinking Water Supply, Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, New Delhi

Posted 19 July 2007

I work as a Consultant (Monitoring and Evaluation) with the Department of Drinking Water Supply, Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India. As you are aware, the Department is implementing a number of programmes for ensuring the supply of safe drinking water and proper sanitation facilities in rural areas of India. According to the latest estimates, sanitation coverage in India has reached 44 per cent. Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC), implemented by the Department, aims to achieve full sanitation coverage by 2012, well ahead of the targets set under MDG 7. The Nirmal Gram Puraskar has given a fillip to achieving open defecation free status and some states like Mizoram, Sikkim and Tripura are on the verge of achieving full sanitation coverage.

Original Query: Gopal Sane, Samruddhi, New Delhi

Posted: 22 March 2006

I have been working with bio sanitizers used in septic tanks and wet kitchen waste treatment and I found that the odors and pests like mosquitoes and cockroaches disappeared. I want to take this idea to densely populated slums in cities like Delhi, where wet kitchen waste and open sewage creating odor and pests is a common problem, but I have found much resistance in getting ready acceptance from communities, even in spite of the obvious benefits.

From Lizette Burgers, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), New Delhi

Posted 24 March 2008

Dear Members,

The Government of India launched the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC), a comprehensive national program to ensure sanitation facilities in rural areas, in 1999. Despite a rapid increase in sanitation coverage, the agenda of achieving total sanitation remains incomplete without addressing the sanitation needs of women specially related to Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM). This is rights based issue of women accessing clean hygienic methods for healthy living with dignity. The issue stems from lack of access to information and affordability.

Providing environmentally-safe sanitation to millions of people is a significant challenge, especially in the world’s second most populated country. The task is doubly difficult in a country where the introduction of new technologies can challenge people’s traditions and beliefs.

“Sustaining the Sanitation Revolution-India Country Paper” has been presented and published by the Department of Drinking Water Supply, Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) for SACOSAN-III in 16-21 November 2008, paper is divided into two parts – rural and urban sanitation however, in both rural and urban spheres, it highlights the promising initiatives are underway to tackle the sanitation challenge in India.