Though India is becoming a leading political and economic power, basic health amenities is a major challenge yet to be accomplished. Basic health and sanitation facilities like toilets are still a distant reality for many in India. On 22nd March 2013, when UNICEF observed world malnutrition day, the organisation pointed out that India has contributed to over 24% of under five deaths in the world. The major reasons for the alarmingly high child mortality rates are malnutrition, contaminated water and inadequate hygiene. When it came to standards of hygiene and sanitation, India’s situation was even bleaker. Across the millennium over 814 million people in India had not seen any improvement in terms of sanitation. Thus UNICEF had pointed out that the poor child health is directly linked with lack of proper latrines in India.
Stunted growth in children is one of the harmful side effects of open defecation. Early exposure to faecal germs causes reduction in height (source: The nutritional value of toilets: How much international variation in child height can sanitation explain? By Dean Spears, 2013). It reduces the capacity of small intestine to absorb nutrition causing stunting and various other malabsorption deficits without any symptoms such as diarrhoea.
If we look back at the work that has been done in the field of sanitation, one of the most prominent personalities that crops up is Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak. Dr. Pathak has been working in the field of sanitation since 1970. The extremely popular Sulabh Sanitation Mission was his brainchild and its success brought a lot of accredit to his name. Amongst the various activities that have been conducted, some of them are construction of new toilets, dry latrines into water pour-flush toilets, setting up a nationwide network of public toilets etc. Later on many other programmes were also linked to the above, such as linking of community toilets with biogas plants, solid waste management and duckweed based waste water treatment plants, etc. Another significant factor in the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan is the construction of school toilets. The year 2013 was set as the target to start proper working toilets in all schools across the nation.
It is high time that the people start an initiative to face the sanitation issue in the rural sector and make a creative step to alleviate the rising number of child mortality rates in India. Along with malnutrition and proper health care facilities, lack of toilets and open air latrines are one of the major causative agents behind these alarming statistics. The honourable initiative to clean our streets and cities through ‘Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan’ should also include a step to increase the funds allocated to build toilets in households and public places and make sure that the funds are distributed as per the requirement.
To conclude I would like to quote the words of global head of UNICEF water, health and sanitation programme, Sanjay Wijesekera, “The numbers can be numbing but they represent real lives, real children. Every child is important. Every child has the right to health, the right to survive and the right to a good future.”
