E-WASTE: INDIA’S NEGLECTED DISASTER

E-WASTE: INDIA’S NEGLECTED DISASTER According to The 'Global E-Waste Monitor 2014', compiled by UN's think tank United Nations University (UNU), India is the fifth biggest producer of e-waste in the world, discarding 1.7 million tonnes (Mt) of electronic and electrical equipment in 2014. What does the report say?  The volume of global e-waste is likely to rise sharply by 21 per cent in next three years.  The US and China produced the most e-waste (32%) overall in 2014 .  India came in fifth, behind the US, China, Japan and Germany.  Most e-waste in the world in 2014 was generated in Asia at 16 Mt or 3.7 kg per inhabitant.  Most e-waste in the world in 2014 was generated in Asia at 16 Mt or 3.7 kg per inhabitant. o The top three Asian nations with the highest e-waste generation in absolute quantities are China (6.0 Mt), Japan (2.2 Mt) and India (1.7 Mt).  The top per capita producers by far are the wealthy nations of northern and western Europe, the top five being Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Denmark, and the UK.  The lowest amount of e-waste per inhabitant was generated in Africa (1.7 kg/inhabitant). The continent generated 1.9 Mt of e-waste in total. P a g e | 40 Other highlights:  Toxins in that e-waste include 2.2 Mt of lead glass, 0.3 Mt of batteries, as well as mercury, cadmium, chromium and 4,400 tonnes of ozone-depleting substances (CFCs). Reasons for increasing e-wastes:  Rising sales of electronic equipments.  Shortening life cycles of electrical and electronic equipment. What is E-waste? E-waste is a term used to cover all items of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) and its parts that have been discarded by its owner as waste without the intent of re-use.E-waste or electronic waste, therefore, broadly describes loosely discarded, surplus, obsolete, broken, electrical or electronic devices. Composition: E-waste consists of all waste from electronic and electrical appliances which have reached their end- of- life period or are no longer fit for their original intended use and are destined for recovery, recycling or disposal. It includes computer and its accessories monitors, printers, keyboards, central processing units; typewriters, mobile phones and chargers, remotes, compact discs, headphones, batteries, LCD/Plasma TVs, air conditioners, refrigerators and other household appliances. The presence of elements like lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, selenium, hexavalent chromium, and flame retardants beyond threshold quantities make e- P a g e | 41 waste hazardous in nature. It contains over 1000 different substances, many of which are toxic, and creates serious pollution upon disposal. How will the report help? The report provides a baseline for national policymakers, producers and the recycling industry, to plan take-back systems. It can also facilitate cooperation around controlling illegal trade, supporting necessary technology development and transfer, and assisting international organisations, governments and research institutes in their efforts as they develop appropriate countermeasures.  ‗Urban mine‘- A large potential reservoir of recyclable materials.  ‗Toxic mine‘ -The hazardous content of e-waste that must be managed with extreme care. Health Problems because of e-waste: Health problems associated with toxins present in the e-waste include impaired mental development, cancer, reproductive disorders, endocrine disruption and damage to livers and kidneys.  Lead is toxic to the kidneys, accumulating in the body and eventually affecting the nervous and reproductive systems. Children‘s mental development can be impaired by low-level exposure to lead.  When burned, PVC produces dioxins, some of the most hazardous carcinogens known.  Brominated flame retardants have been linked to fetal damage and thyroid problems. P a g e | 42  Barium produces brain swelling after a short exposure. It may cause weakness in muscles as well as heart, liver, and spleen damage.  Hexavalent chromium damages kidneys, the liver, and DNA. Asthmatic bronchitis has been linked to this substance.  Mercury is known to harm developing fetuses and is passed through mothers‘ milk to newborns. In adults, it can cause brain and kidney damage.  Beryllium causes acute or chronic beryllium disease, a deadly ailment affecting the lungs.  Cadmium is a carcinogen and long-term exposure leads to kidney and bone damage. E-waste in India:  There are 10 States that contribute to 70 per cent of the total e-waste generated in the country, while 65 cities generate more than 60 per cent of the total e-waste in India. o Among the 10 largest e-waste generating States, Maharashtra ranks first followed by Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Delhi, Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab. Among the top ten cities generating e-waste, Mumbai ranks first followed by Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune, Surat and Nagpur.  The main sources of electronic waste in India are the government, public and private (industrial) sectors, which account for almost 70 per cent of total waste generation. P a g e | 43  The contribution of individual households is relatively small at about 15 per cent; the rest being contributed by manufacturers. Though individual households are not large contributors to waste generated by computers, they consume large quantities of consumer durables and are, therefore, potential creators of waste.  An Indian market Research Bureau (IMRB) survey of ‗E-waste generation at Source‘ in 2009 found that out of the total e-waste volume in India, televisions and desktops including servers comprised 68 per cent and 27 per cent respectively. Imports and mobile phones comprised of 2 per cent and 1 per cent respectively.  The Cobalt-60 radiation tragedy at Mayapuri in Delhi in which one person lost his life and six persons were admitted to hospital served as a wakeup call drawing attention to the mounting quantity of hazardous waste including ewaste in the country while revealing systemic problems on the issue of waste disposal. What happens to the e-Waste? An incredibly small percentage of e-waste is recycled. The remainder is most often dumped or burned – either in formal landfills and incinerators, or informally dumped or burned. Ways of Disposal of E-waste: 1. Landfill 2. Incineration 3. Reuse 4. Recyc

International Day for Biological Diversity

International Day for Biological Diversity Objective of IDB: The International Day for Biological Diversity is part of a series of activities to focus attention on the Convention on Biological Diversity. A wide range of events are organized globally to increase the understanding of the important role of biodiversity in our future. The day is an opportunity to promote conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. Theme of International Day for Biological Diversity 2015 'Biodiversity for Sustainable Development' This year‘s theme reflects the importance of efforts made at all levels to establish a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of the United Nations Post- 2015 Development Agenda for the period of 2015-2030 and the relevance of biodiversity for the achievement of sustainable development. What is CBD? The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is an international environmental agreement established for the conservation, sustainable use, and fair and equitable The United Nations had proclaimed May 22 as The International Day for Biological Diversity (IDB) to increase understanding and awareness of biodiversity issues. UN General Assembly adopted 22 May as IDB, to commemorate the adoption of the text of the Convention on Biological Diversity at a conference in Nairobi, Kenya. P a g e | 24 sharing of benefits of biological resources. The agreement has been ratified by 193 countries.
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was inspired by the world community‘s growing commitment to sustainable development. It is an important global instrument which first evolved through the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), the so-called Earth Summit, which was held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has 3 main objectives: 1. The conservation of biological diversity 2. The sustainable use of the components of biological diversity 3. The fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN)-India The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is implementing a global multi country project on Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN), which provides tools and methodological framework for measuring expenditure on biodiversity, which the countries may choose to use in their efforts to mobilise resources required for achieving the global and national biodiversity targets. Launched in October 2012 by UNDP, BIOFIN focuses on national implementation of the methodological framework in the countries that agree to pilot the initiative. P a g e | 25  In India BIOFIN was launched on the day of International Day for Biological Diversity.  BIOFIN provides a systematic and flexible approach to identify and mobilise the financial resources needed for implementing the National Biodiversity Action Plan (NBAP) and making progress towards achieving the National Biodiversity Targets (NBT).  Through implementation of BIOFIN, it is expected to further enhance awareness and sensitization about significance of biodiversity in development sectors, thereby, inter alia leveraging existing resources to contribute more towards biodiversity, and reducing the financial gap in achieving the NBTs. P a g e | 26 Environmental Democracy Index: EDI is an objective, common index to understand the state of environmental democracy for countries around the world, which is essential to strengthen laws and public participation around environmental issues. The Environmental Democracy Index evaluates environmental democracy in 70 countries, including 75 legal and 24 practice indicators, based on recognised international standards. This index evaluates nations' progress in enacting laws to promote transparency, accountability and citizen engagement in environmental decision making.  Environmental democracy in a country is defined as the ease with which citizens can be a meaningful part of the environmental decision-making process. Environmental democracy also implies making environmental information available to the public. Need:  People around the world often lack the ability to participate in decisions that impact their environment—yet no independent tool currently exists to measure and map these gaps in rights.  Without credible measurement, marginalized groups are unable to advocate for a greater voice in environmental and development decisions and support outcomes that benefit people and the planet.  Policymakers who have made commitments to transparency and citizen engagement need credible and accessible tools to track progress and provide guidance. P a g e | 27 The list was launched by Washington-based World Resources Institute (WRI) and Access Initiative.  India has ranked 24th out of 70 countries in the first Environmental Democracy Index  Lithuania, Latvia, Russia, the US, South Africa, the UK, Hungary, Bulgaria, Panama and Colombia are the top 10 nations.  93 per cent of the assessed countries have established the right to environmental information.  45 per cent do not have strong protections to ensure that access to information is affordable and timely.  46 per cent of the countries assessed do not provide any ambient air quality data online for their capital cities.  14 per cent of the countries have legal mechanisms that help women access courts to obtain redress when their environmental rights are violated. Need for EDI: Dozens of laws on environmental democracy have been passed in recent years— especially on the right to information—yet laws and regulations protecting citizens‘ rights to participate in decisions that impact their environment are too often either toothless, vague, or absent. Public participation opportunities are often confined to environmental impact assessments, and even then far too often the public is only consulted after the decision has been made. When these processes fail to protect the public interest, ensuring justice requires mechanisms for grievance and compensation P a g e | 28 This index is a powerful lever that will help governments to become more transparent and ordinary citizens to advocate for more rights. Features of EDI:  EDI is composed of original indicators that measures how well countries' national laws protect environmental democracy rights as well as key areas of implementation.  The index will be featured on a web-based platform being developed by The Access Initiative (TAI) and the World Resources Institute (WRI), allowing users to compare countries‘ performances at aggregated and disaggregated levels using an interactive map.  Both legal and practice indicators are updated biennially. Benefits:  The Environmental Democracy Index will dramatically increase a country‘s ability to identify gaps in environmental rights and key aspects of performance by measuring progress against an international standard: the United Nations Environment Programme‘s 2010 Bali Guidelines on Principle 10.  The performance indicators will help users assess, for instance, which capital cities are proactively making air and water quality data available on a regular basis.  By establishing a centralized hub of legal analysis and implementation data on procedural rights, EDI will help governments and advocates identify gaps and prioritize reforms. P a g e | 29  EDI will synergize with other ongoing efforts—such as those of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR)—to build capacity and political will to implement environmental rights. 

The deadly new age war

Without a single shot fired or a drop of blood spilled, an entire country can be crippled. That is cyber warfare, and the government must start working right away to combat the new enemy

In late 2006, the U.S Department of Defence detected a major breach in their computer systems leading them to believe that their $337 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) programme had been compromised. Investigations that started at Pentagon, the department headquarters, revealed that the breach had taken place far away from HQ.

The JSF programme, claimed to be producing one the world’s most advanced combat aircraft, was primarily being developed by the private defence contractor Lockheed Martin, along with many sub-contractors. While the companies were busy meeting deadlines, no one had noticed a deliberate Computer Network Exploitation (CNE) attack that had taken place on their premises.

Unlike the spies of the Cold War era, when collaborators would provide access to secret documents to physically copy and photograph documents, the new age spies didn’t need any physical access. Working over the Internet thousands of miles away, they sucked out thousands of secret documents, jeopardising one of the most secret programmes under development by the U.S military.

Clearly, the nature of the new threat had established that the boundaries that needed to be defended were no longer housed within the walls of a seemingly secure government facility. Instead, they were now far beyond the government’s secure facilities and at places where such an attack was least expected.

In 2007, Estonia, a tiny former Soviet republic, faced one of the most debilitating attacks in modern times. No shots were fired and no tanks rolled across its border. Instead, anonymous hackers, suspected to be operating from Russia, launched a massive cyber-attack on its information systems and brought critical infrastructure sectors such as banking and power to a grinding halt. For three days, the country faced chaos. Systems refused to re-start and ATMs refused to dispense cash, as the financial architecture, based on millions of lines of code, had crashed. The attack, known as a Deliberate Denial of Service (DDoS), had proved what modern warfare could achieve without any blood being spilled.

The attack on Lockheed Martin and Estonia revealed the extent of vulnerability of the systems that operated some of the most critical sectors in a country. From defence to energy, power, aviation and law enforcement, every sector that depended on computer networks was suddenly left extremely vulnerable. This realisation led to the identification of several areas to be designated as “Critical Information Infrastructure” (CII) that would need a slew of measures to be strengthened against future threats.

India’s slow response

The last decade has witnessed a slow but steady realisation within the Indian government that the threats of the future will come from cyberspace. Unfortunately, while the realisation exists, the Indian security establishment has not been jolted into action in the manner in which the Kargil war or the 26/11 terrorist attack on Mumbai galvanised the nation to adopt a series of corrective measures. In 2008, when the Information Technology Act 2000 was amended, the introduction of Section 70A and 70B went largely unnoticed in policy circles.

Article 70A mandated the need for a special agency that would look at designated CIIs and evolve practices, policies and procedures to protect them from a cyber attack. But the then United Progressive Alliance government took another six years to create such an agency. On January 16, 2014, the Department of Information Technology (DIT) issued a notification announcing the creation of a specialised body to protect India’s CIIs. The National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) was created and placed under the technical intelligence agency, the National Technical Research Organisation, to roll out counter-measures in cooperation with other security agencies and private corporate entities that man these critical sectors.

Unfortunately, since 2014, there seem to have been few moves to establish the mandate of the government’s 2014 notification. A “critical sector” has been defined under the notification as “sectors that are critical to the nation and whose incapacitation or destruction will have debilitating impact on national security, economy, public health or safety”.

The government has identified 12 sectors that fit the bill and can be covered under the NCIIPC project as mandated by Section 70A of the amended IT Act. These range from energy to power, law enforcement, aviation, banking, critical manufacturing, defence and space. While several of them are housed within the government, sectors such as energy and power are manned by the private sector. While the overarching guidelines for the protection of CIIs were issued by the government in May 2012, the sectors still lack specific guidelines that will address their peculiar challenges in cyberspace.

A joint responsibility

When the U.S government was grappling with its cyber security challenges, there was a clear realisation that it did not have the wherewithal or the scope to protect all the critical sectors. It realised that it needed to work closely with the private sector manning these sectors to establish a foolproof defence system. That was only possible if both sectors — government and private — agreed to come together and establish joint mechanisms to ward off future attacks. This was possible in principle, but in reality, it was a bigger challenge than what most people had anticipated.

The biggest issue on both sides was the lack of trust. The government was essentially a regulator, while the private companies sought as little control as possible. It took several years for both sides to evolve before they could work together, building trust and joint mechanisms to protect each other.

In India, there should be a proliferation of similar efforts at every level led by the NCIIPC. It needs to take the lead, as mandated by the DIT notification to assist in the “…development of appropriate plans, adoption of standards, sharing best practices, and refinement of procurement processes in respect of protection of Critical Information Infrastructure”. This will mean sitting together to conduct joint exercises, map vulnerabilities, build counter-measures and achieve a synergy that it is currently lacking. For a nation that seeks to achieve Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of ‘Digital India’ and ‘Make in India’, the clock is already ticking away. Any delay now will only lead to disastrous consequences.

Old debate on lead rekindled

Despite its known toxicity, lead continues to bring in profits for manufacturers. And it continues to be used, to the great detriment of human and environmental health.

Noodles laced with lead have made the news. But humans have been imbibing lead with their food and drink for over 2,000 years. Lead is an abundant, easily accessible metal that has been in use for millennia. The Romans used lead extensively in cooking vessels, water pipes, and as an alloy in their silver coins. Annual production in the Roman Empire amounted to 80,000 tonnes. Grape juice boiled in lead vessels was added to wine and other dishes, all of which meant that Romans guzzled lead in substantial quantities throughout their lives. This happened despite the fact that Greco-Roman physicians knew that lead was highly toxic; they had vividly described the symptoms of lead poisoning. Some historians speculate that the collapse of the Roman Empire was brought on by lead poisoning.

The wordwide annual production of lead today amounts to 50 lakh tonnes; it is used in solder, paint and even food colouring. By now, lead has accumulated in significant quantities in human bodies and the environment. But the major culprit in the spread of lead is the anti-knock additive to the automobile fuel, tetraethyl lead (TEL). The history of how TEL was unnecessarily thrust on humanity and the biosphere makes a riveting story.

Push for TEL and opposition

TEL was first synthesised in Germany in the mid-19th century, but never put to use, being highly toxic. It was resurrected by the American automobile, oil and chemical industry as an anti-knock agent in the early 1920s. By then it had been widely acknowledged that mixing alcohol with petroleum could effectively serve the same purpose, with Scientific American reporting on April 13, 1918: “It is now definitely established that alcohol can be blended with gasoline to produce a suitable motor fuel.” By 1920, a U.S. Naval Committee had concluded that alcohol-gasoline blends “withstand high compression without producing knock.” But alcohol cannot be patented and cannot bring large profits to companies. So, all discussion of its potential was deliberately suppressed, and TEL pushed with vigour.

This push met with much opposition because there were many deaths and serious injuries in plants manufacturing TEL. As a result, several U.S. states banned its use. Many distinguished medical scientists opposed it. In response, the U.S. Surgeon-General convened a meeting in 1925 that, in turn, appointed a committee. This committee reported that there was no existing evidence of the ill-effects of long-term exposure to lead in the atmosphere on human health, but also pointed out that this was because there had been no research on the topic, and such research needed to be initiated urgently. Industry happily funded a pliant medical scientist, Robert Kehoe. For the next 40 years, the Surgeon-General and Kehoe undertook forceful advocacy of TEL. Many noted scientists remained unconvinced, but Kehoe challenged them to show clear evidence of the ill-effects of TEL. An important element of Kehoe’s claim of the absence of ill-effects of TEL was that the natural levels of lead in human blood were as high as 0.2-0.4 ppm. Notably, toxic effects of lead appear at just slightly higher blood levels of 0.5-0.8 ppm. Since Kehoe monopolised the research, it was impossible for the many doubters to produce counter-evidence.

The logjam was broken in the 1960s when a brilliant young geochemist, Clair Patterson, entered the scene. Patterson was working on iron meteorites to determine the age of our earth, for which it was essential to determine the levels of lead in the meteorites accurately. But this proved incredibly difficult, for Patterson discovered that the whole environment was so polluted by lead that it was well-nigh impossible to set up a lead-free laboratory. Finally, Patterson succeeded, and in 1956 determined the earth’s age to be 4.56 billion years, an estimate that continues to be accepted to this date. Patterson was then stimulated to look into the issue of lead in natural and human-impacted environments. Surprised by the closeness of the ranges of presumed natural and toxic lead levels in human blood, he began to examine the levels of a series of elements in the non-living environment and the biosphere. Patterson showed that living organisms preferentially take up useful elements such as calcium and actively exclude toxic ones such as barium from the same group.

This led to his second major contribution to science in the form of the concept of biopurification. According to this principle, natural concentrations of harmful elements in human body should be far lower than levels that are toxic, and that Kehoe’s claim of natural levels of lead in human blood being as high as 0.2-0.4 ppm was very much suspect.

Rising levels of lead

Patterson then systematically investigated levels of lead in rocks, rivers and sea water, ocean sediments, the atmosphere and the biosphere. He demonstrated that over the last few centuries, the levels of lead in the remains of marine organisms incorporated in sediments had gone up a hundredfold. He took ice cores from the Arctic and Antarctic and demonstrated a similar increase. The obvious conclusion was that the prevailing levels of lead in the human body were a result of pollution, and were not natural levels at all, as Kehoe had been claiming so far. Patterson provided clinching evidence of this when human teeth and bones from ancient burials turned out to have just one-thousandth the amount of lead as teeth and bones of modern-day humans.

Summarising his work, Patterson published a ground-breaking paper in 1965 that destroyed all of Kehoe’s unsustainable claims. The scientific, especially the medical research, community that had been mutely witnessing the unacknowledged ill-effects of lead pollution was immediately convinced. After sidelining his work and oil companies cutting off his funding, the U.S. government was finally forced to ban TEL a full 20 years after the publication of his paper.

But this chemical, thrust upon the world only because it is patentable, continues to bring in profits to its manufacturers from across the world, including India’s neighbours, Afghanistan and Myanmar, who still use it as an automobile fuel additive. Indeed, as Larry Summers, then a vice-president of the World Bank, and later Secretary of Treasury under Bill Clinton, had written in his notorious memo of 1991: “The measurements of the costs of health impairing pollution depends on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality. From this point of view, a given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.” Perhaps India, too, is acting today on this “impeccable” logic, to the evident detriment of its environment and the quality of life of its people.

Indian Ocean Dipole

Indian Ocean Dipole

The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) also known as the Indian Niño is an irregular oscillation of sea-surface temperatures in which the western Indian Ocean becomes alternately warmer and then colder than the eastern part of the ocean

The IOD involves an aperiodic oscillation of sea-surface temperatures, between "positive", "neutral" and "negative" phases. A positive phase sees greater-than-average sea-surface temperatures and greater precipitation in the western Indian Ocean region, with a corresponding cooling of waters in the eastern Indian Ocean—which tends to cause droughts in adjacent land areas of Indonesia and Australia. The negative phase of the IOD brings about the opposite conditions, with warmer water and greater precipitation in the eastern Indian Ocean, and cooler and drier conditions in the west.

The IOD also affects the strength of monsoons over the Indian subcontinent. A significant positive IOD occurred in 1997–8, with another in 2006. The IOD is one aspect of the general cycle of global climate, interacting with similar phenomena like the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in the Pacific Ocean.

The IOD phenomenon was first identified by climate researchers in 1999.[1][2] Yet evidence from fossil coral reefs demonstrates that the IOD has functioned since at least the middle of the Holocene period, 6500 years ago.

Gujarat farmer paves way for a new, climate-smart cash crop - sunshine

 using the excess energy to pump more groundwater to irrigate wheat and banana crops, Ramanbhai Parmar from Gujarat sold the extra energy he generated over four months back to the power grid.
He received Rs7,500 ($120) for 1,500 kilowatt hours kWh of electricity which, if used to run his water pump, would have extracted extra 8 million litres of groundwater.
“’Solar crops’ are a very exciting example of a triple-win,” Tushaar Shah, IWMI senior fellow, said in a statement.
“Farmers, the state, and precious water reserves all benefit from a single intervention.”
When solar-powered water pumps were introduced in Gujarat, it quickly transpired that farmers took advantage of what they saw as free energy to extract more water than they needed and groundwater reserves were depleted.
“We know that India’s farmers are extremely responsive to incentives that improve productivity and incomes,” said Shah.
“By offering them the chance to sell the electricity generated by their solar-powered water pumps, we could make agriculture in India cleaner and greener.”
Gujarat gets up to 3,000 hours of sunlight per year, but at the same time suffers from extended dry spells. Giving farmers an opportunity to sell excess energy could encourage them to pump only the water they need, said IWMI.
IWMI estimates that around 11 million farmers across India are currently connected to the electricity grid could install solar-powered water pumps and sell the extra energy produced.
According to the 2011 census, about 33% of India’s households lacked access to electricity. Scaling up the initiative could help relieve pressure on the state’s overwhelmed electricity board,

Six steps to a successful sanitation campaign

Inadequate sanitation costs India $54 billion a year. To that, add the challenge of juggling our nationalistic aspirations of superpowerdom with the ignominy of housing the largest share of human population that defecates in the open.

Amid many reports that the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA) is failing, we need a dose of optimism. While SBA might be failing, it certainly isn’t the first, nor will it be the last state-led sanitation programme to fail in India. Our large schemes to tackle this challenge have, more often than not, ended up as models of just what one should avoid doing if they are serious about bringing about total sanitation.

It is now widely acknowledged that conventional approaches are not working: those that set up a false dichotomy between construction and behaviour change; those that are content with pit latrines as opposed to functional toilets; those that use reductionist conceptions such as communities being open defecation free rather than focusing on personal and environmental sanitation and hygiene as a whole; and those that settle for incremental coverage instead of full coverage from the start.

However, it’s not that there are no success stories within India or in our immediate neighbourhood. For one, the experiences of locally-embedded NGOs that have taken their interventions to scale can be highly instructive. There have also been state-led successes in Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh that can offer valuable lessons. So what could some key design elements in a sanitation programme be?

First, do not approach communities with a single message (build and use toilets), but with a comprehensive health and hygiene intervention. Gram Vikas, an Odisha-based NGO, approaches communities with a package of interventions: a toilet and bathing room, and a community-level overhead tank to provide piped water supply to all houses through three taps (one each in the toilet, bathing room and kitchen). The community engagement should start with the promotion of individual level, household level and environmental sanitation. This will automatically place an emphasis on the participation of every household in the community. Also, talk about menstrual hygiene. Doing this makes the programme one that talks to communities about their lifestyles, health, livelihoods and dignity, rather than just about toilets.

Second, instead of being subsidy-averse, be ready to experiment until you get the design right. Recent research in Bangladesh shows that a subsidy helps overcome barriers to sanitation that cannot be overcome by information campaigns alone. Specifically, they find that joint investment commitments from a community accompanied with subsidies targeted at the poorest families helps increase take-up. The same is the experience in Maharashtra under a state-led sanitation programme. The popular failings of subsidies in India have been due to a combination of mis-targeting, poor community buy-in and shoddy construction. However, an optimal level of financial assistance and delivery should continue to be part of the policy design and implementation strategy.

Third, play on local power relations. Messages targeted at young women encouraging them to demand that toilets be available in households they marry into seem to have worked in many places. On the other hand, it is important to ensure that messages targeting women and girls are not misinterpreted in patriarchal societies that usually make up the audience. Supporting the poorest households (who are also likely to lower caste groups) can also translate into social pressure on the rich (and upper caste) households to catch up in terms of adopting safe sanitation practices.

Fourth, allow communities to evolve their own norms around individual and collective rights and responsibilities. As the water and sanitation infrastructure is being built up, gram sabhas should deliberate about shared codes of conduct and keeping the campaign to promote toilet usage running. While one may not be in favour of local norms that border on coercion, it is best to allow time for shared norms to evolve.

Fifth, do not hurry into scaling up: Yes, big numbers are important in a vast country like India. However, all too often, organisations in a rush to scale up end up compromising on key design elements that made their pilots a success. This is a typical problem with sanitation programmes. When communities become aware of the ‘target-pressures’ on the field staff, it gives them undue bargaining capacity. In an attempt to hasten their work, staff also focus more on the ‘hardware’, ignoring the critical ‘software’.

Sixth, and perhaps most important, be conscientious about quality. The poor do not deserve poor solutions to be thrust upon them. When designing a communications campaign, do not insult the intelligence of the communities you are working with. When constructing toilets, pay utmost attention to technical specifications.

One may be tempted to say that these are impossible conditions for a large-scale state-led programme to pull off. In each of these six components outlined above, it is important to integrate a dose of experiential learning and evidence-informed decision-making. It is critical that implementers are responsive to the dynamic context. The successful sanitation practitioners bring with them years of experience of engagement with informal institutions, local governance structures and local institutions such as schools, clinics and anganwadi centres.

A clear message from years of failure is that technocratic and reductionist approaches will struggle on the ground. Transformative change requires a willingness to work with local politics, allowing for interventions to take root and mature, and an evidence-informed learning approach that eschews pre-conceived biases. A fully decentralised system of implementation is non-negotiable. Only then will we start making progress towards the goal of ‘Swachh Bharat’.