“No toilet, no bride” says the irrepressible Jairam
Ramesh; an IITian turn politician and environmental crusader and now, ever active the union rural development minister. Nevertheless, a
well meaning individual with considerable merit and full of unconventional
Ideas for good of this country. Apart from having the right connections in INC;
he seems to have courage for his own conviction. His statement should ideally
be seen as a “strategic social message” to curb the open defecation which
stands over 65% and should be followed up by all political worker of political
parties; as the same could solve the disastrous public health issues by 50%. We
don’t have the luxury of 10 long years to eliminate this problem and therefore
should be put in a mission mode not only by Govt. but also by Private sector
and NGO and Political parties. The current Govt. policy does not factor in the
rugged habit of people in the country side for open defecation and therefore
has been a failure and resources down the drain and some in the pockets of
politicians and village touts. And, even wherever the toilet is operational not
used by people owing to old habits and lack of proper awareness. If villagers
could be educated about health benefit in the language they understand the best
then a positive environment could be created in our country side to stop the
age old practice of open defecation that creates health hazard, apart from
polluting the sources of drinking water. This problem can be creatively dealt
with by marrying the objective with the habit of populace; and, that could be
to create two separate toilet complex in each village one for each gender in do
different ends of village in a spacious place with provision of running water
and safety tank; but, the toilets should be of rugged design with stone
pavements and separated by green/bamboo mess with open air option in some. This
should address the habits of villagers; one, villager mostly go to release the
night soil in groups, both men and women and second thing is they would rather
prefer a spacious green environment than a small concrete cubicle and that
apart this method would reduce the total cost of providing sanitary facility
per unit of population and has much more probability of being accepted by
villagers as this should be much closer to their requirement and added advantage
of easy maintenance. I would suggest, in next election each village demand for
a TOILET COMPLEX from each political party/candidate if they wish to have their
votes; in this process, apparently we can completely stop the open defecation
in our country in 3 yrs time frame provided all segments of our polity
participate in this mission. No toilet, no bride can be a good starting point.
Kudos for Jairam; but, he should not stretch it further.
Twitter: @ideasofhope Blog: www.ideasofhopebikash.blogspot.com
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