I had been in the hills a few weeks
ago, wandering around with a notebook. One afternoon, I went to a
little restaurant on a highway and drank coffee milky enough to sate
a calf. Honestly, I would have referred a bench on a roadside dhaba.
The only reason I had come to the restaurant was because it was
attached to a hotel and was therefore likely to have a bathroom.
A lot of our decisions are governed by
the question of functional bathroom access, especially for women. The
'functional' aspect is the tricky part. One of the biggest challenges
to Swachh Bharat is the lack of water. People are being chased off
roads and beaches, fined, and publicly shamed, and one man has been
killed for protesting against such shaming. But no humane government
can possibly expect people to use toilets without a reliable and
affordable water supply.
This is a big ask. We have desert
landscapes in India and water supply is a perenniel problem even in
major metropolitan cities like Delhi and Mumbai. Yet, the government
has not seen it fit to look for ecologically sound solutions, even
when the solution is right under its nose and waving frantically.
In that restaurant in the hills, I
noticed a local gentleman talking in Japanese. The gent sensed that
my curiosity was piqued and struck up a conversation. Turned out,
there was a Japanese delegation in India, trying to build business
ties with various state departments. The fabled Bullet train is the
result of similar business collaborations. However, it is a very
expensive deal and one we don't urgently need. What we need very
badly, and the Japanese can offer, are creative toilet solutions.
The gentleman said that one of the
things his group has been trying to do is persuade our governments to
adopt dry toilet blocks, especially in water scarce districts. I
asked him how they worked and he jumped up to offer me a demo. He had
the basic toilet out of its cardboard carton and set up in less than
ten minutes. All it needed was a patch of land with a deep pit dug
below. One would still need water to wash oneself but for flushing,
dry materials like sawdust or sand would do.
I knew of dry toilets and have even
used it once, in Australia. Instead of sawdust, mud and dry leaves
were used. It felt weird, I'll admit, because of my cultural
conditioning. Water feels critical, even for flushing. But think of
it; those who live in hot or cold deserts must have alternatives. In
fact, report suggest that nearly 40 percent of the world will be
facing water shortages by 2050.
The Japanese-speaking gent sounded
disappointed. Hundreds of millions of Indians do not have access to
plentiful water. Thousands of crores are being spent on building
toilets and promoting the idea of an open defecation-free India. But
people can't use these toilets if there's not enough water.
Bureaucrats and ministers, he said, have been approached. They say
they're open to the idea of a pilot project with dry toilets, but
refuse to pay for it, regardless of how urgent the need, regardless
of how much cheaper or how eco-friendly the alternatives might be.
It is indeed disappointing that we can
pay through our noses for a faster train in the name of progress, but
can't be bothered to invest tiny sums of money in something as basic
as a functional toilet.
A good logical point of view.
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ReplyDeleteبسم الله الرحمن الرحيم نحن فى شركة الكمال تقوم بافضل انواع التنظيف العام وتنظيف الفلل بافضل
انواع العالميه التى تحافظ على السيراميك
شركة الكمال
شركة تنظيف بالطائف
شركة تنظيف بجازان
شركة تنظيف بحائل
ونحن فى خدماتكم اربعه وعشرون ساعه وكل هذا بافضل الاسعار واقل التكلفة