According to a study done by Asian Development Bank in 2009,an estimated 600 million people have no access to toilets in India.It may be the world's second fastest growing economy but there are 122 million households in India with no toilets according to UNICEF.
With a little help from Central Govt and state govt, more than 850 villages in Haryana have written a new success story in sanitation drive. With a budget of Rs 181 crore,the campaign in Haryana is one of India's successes producing 1.6 million toilets.
The target is for 1.9 million. The 11 year old Total Sanitation Programme is one of the nine flagship programmes of the UPA government jointly funded by the centre, states and the panchayats. The sanitation scheme is limited to families below the poverty line and includes community toilets for schools, anganwadis and community complexes for women.
The idea is to make rural India a cleaner, healthier place with toilets for everyone by 2010. The main requirement is to involve local government to push for change. The programme needed behavioural change for the success of the sanitation drive.
About 800 gram panchayats have now applied for the 2009 sanitation award in addition to the 859 that already have it. In Kisangarh women do not go out for defecation after sunset. There is hardly any house in the village which does not have a pucca toilet. In another village of Dhola Majra,the panchayat has built community toilets for those who don't have their own. Since no village has a sewer system they dig pits up to 35 feet deep and connect them to septic tanks. The campaign has changed the lives of people there.
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