Toilet, ek pain katha in Jharkhand villages

When the Union government nudged them to build a toilet, almost all the families in Jharkhand’s Dulmi block complied. But many of them continue to defecate in the open even today.
On paper, Dulmi in Ramgarh district has been ‘opendefecation-free’ (ODF) for about a year. As the state’s first block, and one of only three, to earn this honour under Swachh Bharat Mission, it is Jharkhand’s pride, but an audit of villages under the block’s Kulhi panchayat last October shows things are different on the ground.
In Kulhi, 98 out of every 100 households have a toilet, but 51 out of 100 residents still defecate in the open. The audit found that although toilets were built, many were used to store bricks, grass and other materials. Community toilets in villages were closed and non-functional.
About 100 km from Kulhi, the situation is not very different in villages in the interiors of Khunti district. There are toilets around many huts, but most villagers don’t use them or use only at night. Sushma Kacchap, a school student in Limra village, said, “Nahin jaatey kyunki koi nahin jaata (I don’t use it because nobody else does).” Why is the majority refusing to relieve itself in the comfort and privacy of its own toilets? For some, the problem is the toilets themselves. Dark, cramped, poorly ventilated, and usually without an arrangement for running water, they can’t match the open-air experience despite the danger of insects and animals outside.

Most toilets TOI visited had a single tap but there was no source of continuous water supply in the village. be filled. Because flushing is done with buckets, not raised tanks, it usually requires a lot of water. Most households say there is no facility or source of water nearby.
In Khunti district’s Chanho village, girls start queuing up at hand pumps at 4am to get water for household needs. The very idea of carrying more buckets of water for easy. Lack of electricity in villages in the interiors makes it dangerous to venture out at night. People don’t step out at night out of fear of elephants and snakes,” Poonam Tokko, a village resident, said.
The septic pit behind Sushma’s house in Limra has not been properly built. Poor quality of construction is also worrying residents. They fear the brick-lined septic pits can easily collapse when the rains set in.
Under the Swachh Bharart Mission (SBM), certain poor households without toilets are given financial incentive to build toilets. The assistance is provided to those who belong to SC/ST and and are below poverty line. Landless labourers, households headed by women and the physically challenged also get the financial incentive. In Jharkhand, the amount is Rs 12,000 for a toilet. Originally, toilets were to be built by the households. To expedite the construction, self-help groups have been involved in building toilets. In Dulmi, the audit found 41% of toilets were built by contractors.
For now, the audit findings have denied Kulhi panchayat its self-declared ODF tag. Gurjeet Singh, state coordinator of Jharkhand’s social audit unit, said the findings will help improve toilets. “The report has been submitted earlier this month to the government with recommendations for improvement. The state wants to take measures to plug gaps and similar audits will be done across 15,000 gram panchayats.” The audit concluded that “construction of toilets does not mean that they would be utilised. Hence, it is essential that awareness activities are conducted.”
Use of toilet by only 51% villagers in an ODF village is surely not ideal, but it doesn’t represent a complete failure of SBM. It shows even in the interiors of Jharkhand, some villagers have begun to use toilets and many more would if the toilets were better built keeping in view the realities of daily life. It also signifies that just constructing toilets can’t be the measure of open-defecation-free India. The next, and perhaps bigger, challenge is driving a behavioural change.