A Londoner’s public sanitation campaign in Bihar

LONDON - Oliver Cumming was in Bihar with a challenging public health mission — to make the state free of open defecation in two years.

Cumming, 32, a senior policy analyst with London-based international NGO WaterAid, took part in the Gram Gaurav Yatra, a march for sanitation in the state, led by Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) Minister Ashwani Kumar Choubey. The march has already covered 8,750-km while criss-crossing the state that is one of India’s poorest and with appalling record in public sanitation.

Indian government records show Bihar is the worst performer in the national Total Sanitation Campaign. It says out of those without access to sanitation in India, one in six live in Bihar.

After travelling with Choubey for four days, Cumming was impressed by Choubey’s effort to mobilise action on sanitation.

“What was most striking was that the yatra covered all levels of the sanitation challenge; from the senior political level, through to local government and communit-based organisations to the villages and households themselves,” Cumming told IANS.

In partnership with the PHED, WaterAid has tied up with Unicef, the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Programme, and Britain’s Department for International Development for a project to make Bihar Open Defecation Free (ODF) by 2012. All experts agree that defecation in the open is a major source of infectious diseases.

Over the last few years, Cumming and his team of policy analysts have been doing a case study on how public finance can be used effectively and efficiently in India, Tanzania and Thailand.

Cumming and his team have suggested a road map to strengthen the Bihar government’s sanitation programme.

It says projects under the state’s integrated Water and Sanitation Policy should reach every household in Bihar by March this year. Plus, special integrated programmes should be set up for the poorest people, known as Mahadalits.

Other issues in the road map include ensuring inter-sectoral convergence and work with other related departments, setting up a monitoring committee to ensure that programmes are implemented effectively and benefits accrue to the poor.

Cumming, who is travelling to Bihar again soon, says for a population of almost 83 million, an estimated 85 million toilets need to be built to free the state from open defecation.

“Every hour, 478 toilets need to be built in Bihar to meet the 2012 target. According to what we have been able to gather, just two million people in the state live in proper dwellings with a toilet now,” Cumming told IANS.

Several thousand toilets were built during the month-long march, with Choubey impressing villagers by his willingness to take part in the construction himself and get his hands dirty.

For each toilet, the state government is providing Rs.2,200 while the household will have to pay Rs.300. WaterAid India has allocated Rs.1.25 crore (Rs.12.5 million) this year to build toilets in Bihar.

Bihar has seen 11.03 percent economic growth in 2008-09. “We are seeing a strong signal from the state government that this economic growth will be invested in improving social services,” said Cumming. “I was in Bihar for only a short time but what I saw in terms of sanitation made me very optimistic.”

(Cynthia Chandran can be contacted at cynthiachandran@gmail.com)