Sanitation and Hygiene

There are studies and field reports that have analysed the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) in terms of coverage and use of toilets in rural India. The official government survey, the NARSS 2018-19, shows that 93 percent of rural households have access to a toilet and 96 percent of those having a toilet use them.

Meghalaya's draft water policy gets approval

Nirmala Sitharaman, Finance Minister alluded to gaon, garib and kisan as the centre of all policies of this government, while announcing a clutch of schemes aimed at the rural and urban poor. Her budget speech last week reiterated the government's commitment to ensuring piped water supply to all households in India.

The water sector remains male dominated at different scales, from engineers and technocrats responsible for designing irrigation systems, to upper caste and upper class men who decide on the location of canals, borewells, tanks, and other water systems at the grassroots level. While women are involved in the daily management of water for food production, especially on small farms, they have little say in water provisioning decisions.

INTRODUCTION

Swachh Bharat Mission reduced groundwater contamination: UNICEF

Urban India needs to take air pollution more seriously than it does now. The Centre for Science and Environment’s report, State of India's Environment 2019 has come up with startling facts on the state of air in the country. “Air pollution is responsible for 12.5 percent of all deaths in India. Its impact on children is equally worrying. Over 100,000 children below the age of five die due to bad air in the country.”