Chief Minister of Jharkhand
IN JANUARY–FEBRUARY 2018, over 15 lakh rural women in Jharkhand got together and constructed nearly 3.5 lakh toilets during a month-long women’s campaign called the Swachhata Sankalp Abhiyaan. Similarly, in June 2018, over 1 lakh rural households constructed toilets within just 11 days in Jharkhand as part of a mass people’s campaign called the Swachhata Sahyog Abhiyaan. Later in the year, in November 2018, Jharkhand was declared Open Defecation Free (ODF). To put this in perspective, in 2014, Jharkhand had a sanitation coverage of less than 20 per cent, among the lowest in the country; less than one in five rural households in the state had access to a toilet.
This is the story of how Jharkhand went from being laggard to a leader in India’s sanitation revolution.
Sanitation in the country had not been enough of a priority for any political dispensation at the state or Central levels for most of the seven decades since Independence. All this changed with the historic Independence Day address on 15 August 2014 from the ramparts of the Red Fort, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi challenged the country to eradicate the practice of open defecation in just five years, and take India from being the world leader in open defecation to the world leader in safe sanitation.
When I took charge as the Chief Minister of Jharkhand in December 2014, over 80 per cent of the population in the state lacked access to safe sanitation facilities. Given the effect that poor sanitation has on human progress and development, the fact that almost no one in India’s political circles had spoken about it until Shri Modi took it up was shocking to me personally. I was fully aware of the chronic malnutrition, morbidity and stunting that open defecation caused among the children in India. Repeated bouts of preventable illnesses due to rampant pollution of our ground- and surface-water resources resulted in significant loss in the economic productivity of our workforce. Matters were especially difficult for women and girls who had to face the indignity and physical agony of waiting till dark to relieve themselves in the open. Many young girls chose to drop out of school once they reached puberty because of inadequate toilet facilities in schools, in essence depriving the state of scores of future women leaders.
With the Prime Minister putting his personal political capital behind this critical but until then unmentionable subject – a toilet – it gave me the strength and conviction to put sanitation on top of our state’s developmental agenda. It was clear to me that the task of taking Jharkhand from among the states with the lowest sanitation coverage to an ODF state would have to be led personally by me, just like it was being led by the Prime Minister at the national level. As the Chief Minister, I could anchor the administrative machinery to focus on this by investing a significant amount of my time in the programme. This sent a strong signal down the line to all officials, especially district collectors, that sanitation was the top agenda of my government and it must be pursued relentlessly.
We had a long distance to cover, not only in terms of getting toilets constructed in all households, but also in convincing 2 crore rural people to shun their age-old beliefs and habits and adopt safe sanitation facilities. Changing the behaviour of people across 24 districts and 30,000 villages needed a well-articulated, well-thought-out strategy. We had to specially mobilize our women and involve those for whom the prevalent sanitation situation created a unique set of problems.
The Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) recognized that the presence of a toilet in one’s home is a necessary but not sufficient condition to end the practice of open defecation. In addition to infrastructural barriers, there are huge cultural and behavioural barriers that must be dealt with. Hence, the Government of Jharkhand adopted a demand-driven and community-centred approach that focused on both ‘access’ and ‘use’ issues, with an emphasis on information, education and communication. The programme had to be Government-facilitated, but at the same time it was people-led – a jan andolan – where everyone was motivated to collectively act on improving the sanitation situation in their villages.
To us, swachhata was not just about toilets; it was a catalyst for the larger goal of being a healthy state. We had Swachh Officials in each district and village to ensure that the people with access to toilets were using them and keeping them clean and hygienic. We created a cadre of swachhagrahis in each village who worked with the community to ensure that the village adopted sanitation practices, hygienic behaviours, and did not relapse to old habits. We also involved jal sahiyas – our women leaders in each village – to mobilize all women and men to agree on timelines and strategy to make their villages ODF. Our swachhagrahis and jal sahiyas played a key role in fast-tracking the sanitation movement in the state. The state Mission ensured that these jal sahiyas and swachhagrahis are adequately trained and financed to steer the sanitation drive in their villages. We learnt early on that the sanitation movement is best steered by local leaders and the state and district missions started recognizing and rewarding their efforts. This created further momentum and we could see common people providing exemplary leadership to the sanitation movement in the state.
We chose to promote the twin-pit toilet technology as it is most suited to the hydro-geology of Jharkhand, and people can easily use and maintain it. There were many districts within the state that had an acute shortage of masons. We needed trained masons in large numbers to construct the twin-pit toilets. But in this challenge lay an opportunity which eventually became one of the greatest social innovations of the Mission, probably in the entire country. In line with our philosophy of empowering women to take the leadership role in promoting sanitation, we started training the women of our villages as masons, and they came to be known as ‘Rani Mistris’ or ‘Queen Masons’. Over 70,000 rani mistris were trained in the construction of twin-pit toilets as well as in behaviour change techniques within a year. This completely changed the supply-side landscape of SBM, and served as an inspiration to other women across the state to come out and voice their desire for a toilet in their homes. The rani mistris worked with the women of other households to build their toilets, spending 3-5 days with the family where the toilet was being constructed. They used this time effectively to trigger behaviour change and to impart all the information related to the maintenance of the toilet. As a result, all rural households in Jharkhand are now adequately informed not only of the technical design of their toilets, but also of the key hygienic practices that they must follow to realize the full benefits of improved sanitation.
Along with training rani mistris, several other initiatives were put in place to provide impetus to the ODF journey in Jharkhand. We trained 38,000 women swachhagrahis who undertook the task of educating people on the importance of sanitation and hygiene, along with its social, health and economic benefits. In Jharkhand, Swachhata Diwas is organized on the 19th of every month across all schools, anganwadi centres and health centres to further spread awareness and keep the buzz of swachhata alive in districts.
On the 2nd of every month, a Swachhata Sabha is organized across all gram panchayats where discussions on toilet usage and sustenance of ODF status are held so that the recently changed behaviours can be reinforced. Local nigrani samitis wake up early in the morning and go to the erstwhile popular open defecation sites to ensure that there is no slippage into old habits. I believe that the continuous involvement of local communities, especially the women’s self-help groups, at every step of the sanitation ecosystem is one of the primary reasons for Jharkhand’s success in eradicating open defecation.
I had announced that rural Jharkhand would become an ODF state in 2018 – a year ahead of the schedule announced by the Prime Minister to make India ODF. We have delivered on that promise. On 15 November 2018, at the state’s Foundation Day event I had the privilege to declare Jharkhand free from the practice of open defecation. That Jharkhand has achieved the ODF status almost a year ahead of the national target is a matter of pride for all of us Jharkhandis.
We were able to achieve this because, right from the very beginning, our strategy has been demand-centric and our approach has been to make people understand the importance of toilets. Our behaviour-change campaign reached all and appealed to all segments of rural society uniformly. And most importantly, our efforts were accepted and amplified by the people of the state, so much so that several households opted to self-fund and self-construct their toilets, and surrendered the incentive that the Central and state governments provide for toilet construction. This illustrates the level of commitment that the people of the state have towards the process.
While we are proud of what we have achieved, we are equally conscious that there is still work to be done. We have already launched an ODF-sustainability guide for districts to follow and ensure that they remain ODF, and we are now taking this campaign beyond attaining and sustaining ODF status, to achieving an ODF-plus Jharkhand where safe sanitation will encompass complete solid and liquid waste management as well as plastic management. Waste water from kitchens and bathrooms will be treated and reused for agriculture and to recharge the groundwater. All villages will be equipped with rainwater harvesting structures to ensure availability of water for sanitation. Organic waste will be composted and converted into manure.
This process has already begun. Households are presently being trained to use cattle dung, household and agricultural waste extensively to produce biogas. This will not only ensure that villages in the state remain clean, but also strengthen the energy security of these villages.
The success of SBM is directly attributable to the political leadership provided to the movement by the Prime Minister of India. Shri Modi’s leadership is manifested in establishing clear institutional responsibility and allocating budget for sanitation, and ensuring that all Ministries and Departments work together to make the country Open Defecation Free. He used his personal political capital to rally the citizens behind a common cause and set new priorities for the development agenda. He laid down a tremendous example for me to follow, and which I tried to follow to the best of my abilities.
With the guidance of our inspirational Prime Minister and the enthusiasm of the people of the state, I am confident that Jharkhand will continue to lead the sanitation movement and be a forerunner in the ODF-plus campaign as well.