RailEnquiry

After Mahatma Gandhi, Jairam Ramesh is the only national leader to be  genuinely concerned that sixty-five years after independence, some  600 million Indians in the twenty-first century continue to use open  skies as their latrines. While Lee Kuan Yew continues to exhort  Singaporeans to have cleaner loos, our Ministry of Railways, thinks  depositing human excreta all along the country’s length and breadth,  including deep into the cities – at the Railway Stations – is a smart  way to balance its budget.Clearly as a country we don’t realise that  turning out butts to the world is the same as turning our back to  human dignity and civilization.  And yet our sensibilities are quick  to take offence when for once a Minister talks sense saying India needs more toilets than places of worship. Our builders and contractors mostly think it perfectly fine to have  their workforce use the vicinity of the construction sites as open lavatories. Wedding receptions, political rallies and public parades rarely  provide for toilets for the millions who throng the events.  Those  living in the high-rises in the metros rarely provide for toilets for  the army of drivers, milkmen, and newspaper boys who serve them. Our  railway tracks are of course the most used squatting spots. 

In 1999, the Government, unmindful that an ineffective loo policy by  any other name must smell as bad, renamed the Comprehensive Rural  Sanitation Programme – as if a name-change by itself can alter  reality – to Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC), in order “to bring  about an improvement in the general quality of life in the rural  areas and to accelerate sanitation coverage in rural areas to access  to toilets to all by 2012 by motivating communities and Panchayati  Raj Institutions in promoting sustainable sanitation facilities  through awareness creation and health education.”  

In 1999, 2012 must  have appeared too far away to worry about delivering the plan. Well,  it is 2012 now, and according to 2011 census data, the campaign  stinks more than the problem it was supposed to solve. Much money has  gone down the non-existing flush, with little to show but heaps of night-soil around the country. Moscow is dotted with tens of thousands of plastic portable garages  for cars. Does India have a large-scale demand for plastic portable  loos? The nay-sayers are in the same mould as those who proverbially  assume no demand for shoes in Sub-Saharan Africa, because no one  wears shoes! 

Perhaps India needs to explore portable toilets as one  among a menu of solutions needed to address the sanitation challenge.  True, creating a strong maintenance backup system in a country that  is as short on habits of maintenance as on the habit of using toilets  may be daunting. However, given Indian genius for jugaad, would it be  inconceivable to hook up portable toilets to the sewerage system in  every cooperative housing society, slum, marriage venue, building  site, public ground and park, market, bazaar, rally-route and what  have you, which could help keep safeguard our environment and  dignity? In fact, every municipality should be able to mandate such toilets as a compulsory urban sanitation requirement. 

Yes, the cost of such toilets may be prohibitive. At about Rs.  30,000, the costs today may be steep. But such toilets have been  manufactured internationally since the 1960s and the technology  involved is simple – moulded plastic, with necessary sanitary-ware  fixtures. It would be a shame if we cannot mass-produce and sell the  contraption for half that sum or less, given the potential volumes.  How big is the market for this sector? About half the Indian urban  families have no toilets. That alone works to about 60 million  families (of four each) and assuming about 10% of them may be willing to spend, say, Rs. 15,000 per toilet, we are looking at a minimum market size of Rs.  90,000 crore! And the rural market, which has a much higher  population without toilets, may be at least as much, if not more. 

The entrepreneurial potential for such toilets, like the STD booths  of yore, carrying advertisements for toilet products on the outside, must be immense. If so, why hasn’t the industry, which we would like to believe is  smart, stepped in? Well, after all until a decade ago, the toiletries  industry in India hadn’t thought of entering the deodorant and suntan  lotion business, which in a hot, sunny and sweaty country like ours  should have arrived way sooner.  All we can say is our big businesses aren’t all that smart. 

India needs a Latrine Policy as much as it needs latrines.  Perhaps a  national task force under someone like Bindeshwar Pathak of Sulabh  fame could be a good beginning. For starters, to make it really  attractive for entrepreneurs, the sector could be provided income  tax, excise, VAT and GST exemptions. Credit from banks could be  considered priority sector loans. The sector could be allowed to  issue tax-free Sanitary Bonds. Employees working engaged in manufacturing of portable  toilets could be given tax-free salaries. If the Indian IT industry  deserved tax breaks for its growth, Indian toilet industry deserves  it far more. After all, the cost of such policies would be more than  recovered through a cleaner environment, improved public health and  lower city maintenance costs. That this would also help raise our dignity in the international community would be a collateral bonus.  But first, we must recognize the Camel in the kitchen. Or else, we  will never even start looking for solutions.