Hygiene

This report by the World Bank Institute describes the Kerala Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project and the efforts made by the Government of India to revolutionise sanitation services in the state of Kerala, with the aim of improving public health. Earlier experience had shown that significant governance problems had hindered water and sanitation reforms in local and national programmes in the state.

Challenges to reform included a lack of accountability and transparency, corruption, which made sanitation and hygiene problems more difficult to solve and accelerated the spread of infectious diseases throughout densely populated Kerala. It was also found that corruption affected all the sections of the population, particularly the poor and the marginalised. Read More

This seminar paper submitted for the UGC Summer Programme at the Jamia Millia Islamia University describes the findings of a study that explored the quantity of water used in domestic households vis-à-vis the recommended quantity of water consumption in seven major Indian cities, namely, Delhi, Kanpur, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Madurai. The study also attempted to find out equity in consumption of water across various socio-economic groups, sources of water supply, perception of households about quality of municipal water, and duration of municipal water supplyRead More

This report by the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP), The World Bank analyses primary and secondary data from the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) of the Government of India, which has been in operation for over a decade (1999 to date).

The audience for this report includes policy-makers and implementers at national, state and district levels, and the broader sanitation and hygiene community. The report aims at gaining an understanding of the processes, outputs and outcomes of the campaign at a national level and across the states as compared with the inputs that have gone into the program.

The report draws on these indicators, which are then compared individually and in combination to benchmark the states, to understand the relative performance of the states. This benchmarking, based on a combination of eight indicators, is undertaken for both states and districts across the country.Read More

This discussion paper by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) examines the current state of sanitation services in India and offers recommendations that can help key stakeholders work toward universal sanitation coverage in India.

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.

This discussion paper examines the current state of sanitation services in India in relation to two goals—Goal 7 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which calls on countries to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without improved sanitation facilities (from 1990 levels); and India’s more ambitious goal of providing “Sanitation for All” by 2012, established under its Total Sanitation Campaign.

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