Ncs Rural Sanitation Wb 2018.docx

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Rural Sanitation - Unaddressed Issues Naresh Chandra Saxena Background Government of India (GOI) started way back in the 1970s many social sector programmes in poverty alleviation, drinking water, health, nutrition etc; however upto 1986 there was no such central sector programme for sanitation. The 1981 Census revealed that rural sanitation coverage was a meagre 1%, and open defecation was the norm even for well-to-do families. For the first time in 1986 a new Central Rural Sanitation Programme (CRSP) was introduced by Government of India for construction of household toilets in rural areas with huge subsidy element, which was in 1998 Rs 3,000 per toilet available to all. This resulted in construction of a large number of toilets mostly by contractors and hence of poor quality, but these were hardly used for want of felt need, and gradually became dysfunctional. As Secretary Rural Development in Government of India when I started the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) in 1999, I totally abolished subsidy for non-BPL population and reduced it for the BPL from Rs 3000 to only Rs 500, but vastly increased funds for communication and extension. This “demand driven” approach emphasized more on Information, Education and Communication (IEC) activities to increase awareness among the rural people and generation of demand for using toilets. However the states did not like reduction in subsidy, and even funds for IEC were not effectively utilised. Often these were given to some NGO who would publish publicity material that remained undistributed and confined to some junk room. Gradually under pressure from the states the amount of subsidy kept on increasing and it became Rs 10,000 per toilet in 2012, when the scheme was renamed as Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA). States argue that not even 10% of the toilets constructed during the low subsidy regime are in existence now as there was no superstructure and only a single pit was constructed. According to them sustainability of the low cost toilets constructed was a major issue and therefore they are in favour of higher subsidy to construct more durable IHLs (Individual Household Latrines). States seem to have convinced the new Government on the importance of subsidy that was further increased to Rs 12,000 in December 2014. Heavy reliance on subsidy has been criticised by many, such as Spears and Kar, who argue that it delays community participation. However, it seems irreversible now. Convergence with NREGA My own field work shows that quality of construction (arising out of the fact that the house owner does not control expenditure) is a larger bottleneck than lack of awareness. The households’ control over funds was further diluted in April 2012, when government decided to make subsidy available from two different budget heads, NBA and NREGA. However it is almost impossible at the village level to converge and get funds from the two schemes quickly, and this was the biggest dampener for the programme in the last two years of the UPA regime. Before convergence, the implementation of NREGA and NBA were undertaken by different departments who had their own systems of fund flow and work flow. Sanitation and NREGA guidelines are conceptually different from each other, as sanitation guidelines give money only as incentive, whereas NREGA gives money for construction. Moreover toilet construction is not a labour intensive activity, as total labour cost in toilet construction is less than 30%. Another challenge to convergence is the huge paperwork that de-motivates the implementing stakeholders. The net result is that the subsidy amount and therefore construction of toilet is not controlled by the house owner. It is done by someone else in the village who purchases

2 pan, pipes, and pays to the labour. Since a part of subsidy ends up in paying bribes, quality of construction, especially what is underground remains poor, and soon the toilet falls into disuse. How to ensure that the entire subsidy is passed on to the house owner and he alone takes all financial decisions with full sense of ownership and with the intention of using the toilet is the biggest challenge in the programme. Wherever good results are achieved, it is because some district Collector/CEO or BDO assumes leadership, takes risks and decides to flout or ignore rules and procedures. For instance, the subsidy amount from NBA funds was to be given as incentive for using the toilet, and after its construction. However, in practice it was often advanced by the block to the beneficiary, if the gram sewak is convinced about the genuine efforts of the beneficiary. Similarly, the NREGA guidelines lay down that each toilet is to be treated as a separate project (which is time consuming), but it was often not observed. Sometimes the supplier of material would supply these in advance, hoping that the gram sewak or rozgar sahayak would be able to arrange for funds soon. Thus personal interest by the government servant and the panchayat becomes an important factor in the success of the programme. The new Swachh Bharat Mission The Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) was launched by the Prime Minister on 2nd Oct, 2014 with the following objectives: •

To make India Open Defecation Free (ODF) India by 2019, by providing access to toilet facilities to all;

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To provide toilets, separately for Boys and Girls in all schools by 15.8.2015;

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To provide toilets to all Anganwadis; Villages to be kept clean with Solid and Liquid Waste Management.

It is significant to note that the new government in its circular dated 18th December, 2014 permitted the entire Incentive money of Rs 12,000 per toilet chargeable on the Mission from the sanitation sector, thereby putting an end to the necessity of drawing money from two different heads. States will have flexibility to decide whether to give the subsidy to the individual household or to the community or as a combination of both. Ideally the construction activities should be taken up by the individual beneficiaries themselves with support from/or through agencies in the village. States may decide to provide incentives to households in two phases, one at the pre-construction stage and the other on completion of construction and usage. However, the community incentive, if any, can only be released after the village unit is open defecation free for a significant length of time. Thus the new Guidelines allow for a great deal of flexibility and states have been empowered to decide how they wish to spend the funds. States could even give subsidy higher than Rs 12,000 per toilet, but the additional money must come from state and not central resources. Thus NREGA is out of the sanitation sector, and NBA-NREGA convergence, which was the main bottleneck, has become a non-issue. Who is eligible for subsidy? - In TSC, subsidy was available only to the BPL which was a well defined category. The UPA government later added in 2012 all SCs, STs, small & marginal farmers, NREGA workers, landless labourers with homestead, physically handicapped, and ‘woman-headed household’ in the eligibility criteria. These categories have been repeated in the SBM circular too. Some of these categories are not well defined, and leave a lot to adhoc decisions. One BDO in Pune told me that he is able to provide subsidy even to prosperous farmers by declaring one of the adult woman as head of the family, and provide subsidy to them as ‘woman-headed household’. Or if land is in the name of a prosperous farmer, his son may not have any land in his name, and thus he gets entitled as landless. By making the entitlement universal the BDO has been able to generate a lot of demand for subsidy from the rich people. However,

3 such discretion can be misused and may lead to corruption. It also leads to confusion and delays, as in one block the eligibility criteria may be liberally interpreted, whereas the neighbouring block may take a more restrictive view. When I discussed this issue with the Joint Secretary in the Ministry, he said GOI would not like to issue any clarification on this issue, and he would not mind if even the non-poor get subsidy as it would lead to more number of toilets. A study done by UNICEF in July-Aug 2017 showed that 53 per cent in the richest quintile were able to get government subsidy for toilet construction. In some states, such as Gujarat, all households with dysfunctional toilets (irrespective of whether they are APL or BPL) receive Rs. 12000. In case any household had received incentive amount from earlier schemes, that amount is deducted from Rs. 12000. The missing toilets The objective of TSC was to attain 100% sanitation coverage in terms of rural households by the end of the Eleventh Plan (2012). According to the state governments, the coverage progressively moved from 39% to 73% during the period 2007-11, leaving behind only 27% to be covered after 2011. The year-wise reported figures claiming that more than 10 crore (or 100 million) rural IHHLs were constructed before SBM are given below: Table 1: Year-wise construction of rural toilets Financial Year 2001-2002 2002-2003 2003-2004 2004-2005 2005-2006 2006-2007 2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010 2010-2011 2011-2012 2012-2013 2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018 2018-2019 Total :-

Total IHHL(APL+BPL) 638680 596380 6137010 4582283 9171407 9700380 11527890 11265882 12407778 12243731 8798864 4559162 4976294 4954987 12558369 21819261 29803290 21809380 18,75,51,028

Such optimistic claims of state governments were however not supported by Third Party studies. NSSO in its 65th Report of Nov 2010 for Housing Amenities indicated that 65% rural households and 11% urban households have no latrine facility. The sad story of fudging of data by the field staff got further publicity when the census report in 2011 (Figure 1) brought forth the startling revelation that about 3.5 crore toilets built in the last ten years at the individual household levels were missing. In some states the number of missing toilets was more than 60%, as in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The number of missing toilets was as high as 72% in Madhya Pradesh and 78% in Uttar Pradesh. Although the census figures were contested by the Ministry, the baseline survey done in 2012 also gives an indication that the scenario is not good in the BIMAROU states.

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Figure 1: Coverage of toilets by Census 2011 and by state governments 120 100 80 60

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Fudging by States census

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JHARKHAND MADHYA PRADESH ORISSA CHHATTISGARH BIHAR RAJASTHAN UTTAR PRADESH TAMIL NADU KARNATAKA ANDHRAPRADESH GUJARAT MAHARASHTRA J&K WEST BENGAL MEGHALAYA UTTARAKHAND HARYANA ASSAM HIMACHAL PRADESH NAGALAND PUNJAB KERALA TOTAL

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The census of 2011 shows that only 32% households in rural India have access to sanitation. If we count shared and community toilets this figure for rural India goes to about 40%, way below what was being reported by the states. Similarly although more than 28,000 GPs achieved ODF over the 2005-2014 period, studies indicate significant (more than 90 percent according to a WSP sample survey) slip-back (reversion) of ODF achievement1. This kind of over-reporting totally vitiates accountability, and must be discouraged. In the ten years from 2001 to 2011 the percentage of households with toilets in UP increased only from 19.2 to 21.8. However, UP is now reporting that 58.3 per cent households have toilets in Feb 2018. In other words, the number has almost trebled in the last six years, though in the previous ten years improvement was by a meagre two percentage points. One cannot escape from suspecting that UP may have again resorted to inflated reporting, as in the past. Figure 2: Missing toilets in UP

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http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/850971468033846496/pdf/Swachh-Bharat-Appraisal-Stage-PID-Final-2015.pdf

5 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Census 21.8

19.2

TSC/NBA

2001 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

The difference between field reports as compiled by GOI (DDWS) for the entire country and independent surveys is shown below.

A study by TARU of NGP villages suggested that only 109 Gram Panchayats out of 162 GPs surveyed were having toilet usages of more than 60%, i.e. the balance slipped back to the open defecation status. Table 2: Proportion Of NGP Awarded GPs Reporting Usage Of Toilets State None Andhra Pradesh Chhattisgarh Maharashtra Tamil Nadu Uttar Pradesh West Bengal Total Source: TARU study

Proportion of people using Toilet <20% 20% - 40% 60% - >80% 40% 60% 80% 1 4 5 1 5 4 1 7 6 4 36 2 5 9 6 11 1 6 7 1 2 3 18 11 4 20 29 39 64

Total 100%

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10 10 60 33 15 34 162

6 Thus in UP, of the 15 villages studied only one village reported more than 60% usage. What is more damaging is the fact that in UP, of those certified as toilets constructed, only 55% were found to be in existence. Although TSC provided subsidy only to the BPL population, NSSO 2008-09 showed dismal performance amongst the poorer quintiles. NSSO has divided the rural population into five wealth quintiles. The sanitation coverage against each wealth quintile has been reported as follows.

Figure 4: Sanitation trends by wealth quintiles as per NSSO 2008-09 (%)

Source: http://www.wssinfo.org) The above comparison of sanitation practices between the poorest and the richest 20% of households in the country is only an indicator of the inherent inequities in the programming and implementation. This also indicates that in its agenda of progress, India has not reached out to its poorest households who are supposed to be getting subsidy and it is the rich who have constructed toilets either on their own or by getting government subsidy by hook or by crook. Many states, such as UP, Gujarat, and AP have no strategy for addressing dysfunctional toilets. Some others use NREGA funds, although toilet construction is not a labour intensive activity. Achievement under SBM The latest data show that over 6.27 crore household toilets have been constructed in rural areas since SBM was launched on October 2, 2014. The Ministry has claimed that toilet coverage has increased from 39% in October 2014 to 79% in Feb 2018. 3.23 lakh villages and 314 districts (roughly half of the total) have been declared as ODF. In addition, 11 States

including Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, and Gujarat have been declared ODF. Rajasthan's coverage is stated to be 99.7%, it was only 30% in October, 2014. Year-wise progress on the number of toilets constructed is given in Figure 5.

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Figure 5: Annual construction of toilets in lakhs 250 200 150 100 50 0 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18

However a recent World Bank study found that by and large States do not have a system to track ODF sustainability. Hence, declared ODF villages are self-reported achievements based on a one-time check by the State machinery. In some states, political pressure has resulted in a construction-driven approach with limited attention to behaviour change. The most striking examples of this are Gujarat (where several districts were declared ODF prematurely) and Andhra Pradesh. In Jharkhand the State’s implementation approach is geared towards completion of toilet construction mostly through VWSCs with little focus on community involvement. Consequently, despite access to toilets usage was found to be low in 2016. Therefore, what is the guarantee that these toilets would not suffer the same fate as the toilets constructed before 2014, and would continue to be used in future without further financial support from government? To answer this question we need to assess the reasons for toilets becoming dysfunctional or enthusiastic over-reporting in the past. Reasons for ‘missing toilets’ There are critical factors contributing towards a difference in toilets available on paper against the actual coverage figure – the missing toilets. Some of them are: 1. There are cases where toilets were never constructed but were reported as existing, especially for APL. 2. Toilets of poor quality constructed with low-incentives starting from ‘Sector Reform Project’ and early years of TCS became dysfunctional and hardly exist on the ground. 3. Restoration/ renovation of one toilet counting the toilet twice or thrice or perhaps more. 4. Subsidy for one toilet is being claimed by different adult members in the same household, resulting in inflated government figures. 5. Progress was monitored at the GP level in numbers and not by names, making the situation open to over reporting for reward (Now the progress is monitored on the MIS/Base Line Survey by names2).

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http://www.indrastra.com/2017/10/ThinkTank-Lessons-From-Past-Rural-HouseholdsToilet-Stats-Centrally-Sponsored-Sanitation-Progs-003-10-2017-0021.html

8 In Gujarat a WB team observed in 2016 that most often toilets are constructed on a large scale by the GPs by engaging contractors, with little involvement of users in the choice of technology or location of toilet. In 3 out of 4 GPs visited, newly constructed toilets were either not being used or being used as store rooms. The reasons for dysfunctional toilets in the TARU study were given as follows:

Thus the reasons for not using were rooted in poor construction, or technological norms not being followed, and not lack of awareness or reluctance to use, as is the common impression. If the toilet is functional, of good quality, with sufficient water, chances of its being used (at least by women, children, old & sick, and during the rains) are quite high. A study (Hindu 9 June 2014) showed that of the persons defecating in the open, 86 per cent did not have toilets. Same conclusion was drawn in the PEO evaluation3 of 2013, quoted below: ‘The incidence of open defecation is less than 1% in case of households in Sikkim and Kerala. Percentages are quite low in the states of Assam (2.3%), Meghalaya (4.0%) etc. On the other hand, high incidence of open defecation was noticed in the states of Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha. Out of the 73 households per 100 households that practice open defecation, 66 households are forced to do so due to unavailability of individual household or community toilets, and 7 household do so in spite of having toilets.’ ‘32% of households having toilets have reported the need for walls, doors, as well as roofs for their toilets. Such problems were non-existent in the states of Karnataka, Kerala, Sikkim Tamil Nadu, Haryana and Gujarat. Manipur also has many bucket type toilets. The perception of construction related deficiency seems to be the maximum in West Bengal. It can further be seen that most of the households having issues about doors, roofs and walls, also have problems with the depth of the toilet pit. 76% of those households who have expressed the need for walls, roof, as well as door are also dissatisfied about the pit-depth. Thus, according to our estimates, out of the 73 households per 100 rural households where at least one member of the family

Programme Evaluation Organisation 2013 Evaluation Study on Total Sanitation Campaign Planning Commission 3

9 practices open defecation, 66 households are forced to do so due to unavailability of individual household or community toilets, 1 household is forced to resort to open defecation due to the inadequacy of the number of toilets in the household and 6 households do so in spite of having toilets. Clearly, out of the two component of open defecation, non-availability or inadequate availability of toilets is by far the more important issue. Given the availability of toilets, less than 10% households practice open defecation in 9 out of the 20 states.’ The EPCO-UNICEF study on MP shows that almost 80% of the households that have toilet actually use them. In NGP villages of MP, only 6.4% households don’t use toilet in spite of having a functional toilet. The Quality Council of India (QCI) has conducted a third-party assessment of the present status of rural sanitation in all states and UTs, called Swachh Survekshan Gramin 2017.QCI surveyed 1.4 lakh rural households across 4,626 villages and found the overall toilet coverage to be 62.45%.At the time of the survey, i.e. May-June 2017, the Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) MIS reported the coverage to be 63.73%.The survey also observed that 91.29% of the people having access to a toilet use it. The counter-argument is given by Dean Spears (epw, 20 Sept 2014) that ‘many people have a revealed preference for open defecation, and therefore merely providing latrine “access” without promoting latrine use is unlikely to reduce open defecation’. About 25% working males and 15% working females practice OD, despite having a toilet. Is it because of cultural preference, or because of their nature of work which forces them to go to their farm quite early in the morning to perform crop operations? What needs to be observed is whether the partial use gets converted into full use in course of time, or remains partial even after a year or two. Even the total subsidy amount of Rs 12,000 is not sufficient to meet the full cost, and households have to pitch in their own funds. UNICEF implemented an independent survey on a sample of 18,376 respondents representing 10,051 rural households, randomly selected from 550 Gram Panchayats across 12 states accounting for 90 per cent of open defecation in India. The survey was carried out from 20 July – 11 August 2017. The out-of pocket contribution of those household receiving government support was on an average INR 9,942 from own funds. It was INR 29,900 for those not receiving any government support, thus averaging INR 16,262 (US$252.12) across all households. 82 per cent of households in poorest quintile received government support compared to 53 per cent in the richest quintile. Table 3: Costs in Rs to households and government per household sampled, by wealth quintile Group

1. Financial costs paid by household from own funds Investment

All Poorest Q2 Q3 Q4 Richest

16,626 6,971 13,874 16,499 19,160 26,613

Annual O&M 2,359 1,743 2,286 2,397 2,653 2,752

2. Financial costs paid by government or other financier Investment

Investment

3. Non-financial costs (time) covered by household Annual O&M

8,199 9,691 8,825 8,382 7,803 6,229

1,007 1,192 917 803 744 895

6,082 4,189 5,104 5,958 6,772 8,650

10 Another unsolved sanitation related problem is the lack of usable land to build a toilet. In a World Bank study of Samastipur and Ganjam many low-caste households had no land to build a toilet, as they had smaller homes and no additional land4. This would be a pain point mostly for households living in villages near a city or town (as land prices are higher in these villages), or in Census towns. The division of families who are without toilets facilities should be categorised as below. A. Having land & funds but not having mentality B. Having land but lacking funds. C. Having funds but no lands D. Neither having land nor having funds In Chhattisgarh, special provisions are made to ensure landless gain access. This includes, row toilets, community toilets, land donations, construction of toilets on the first floor of house, construction by GP in case of poorest of the poor/old/infirm, providing land (patta) to landless families. One needs to know how other states are addressing this issue. Technical issues In India often the size of pits are several times the recommended size of 50 cuft. This is being done to ensure that the pit never gets filled up. A World Bank report observed that there was low acceptance of technically correct leach pit among people due to belief that ‘low’ depth leach pit will get filled up quickly. This results in modification of leach pits such as increase in depth of pit to over 9 feet and up to aquifer level. For a family of 6, the WHO estimates that it will take about 5 years for a 50 cuft pit to fill. To protect the health of pit emptiers, and to reduce the risks of disease transmission from fresh sludge, the Indian government recommends the construction of twin pit latrines. Twin-pit latrines reduce the health hazards of manual emptying of latrine pits because the feces in the full pit can be left to decompose for several months while the household channels feces into the second pit. Unfortunately, adoption of the twin pit model was very low in rural north India, at least till 2015. In Odisha, single pit is promoted even after 2015. On the other hand, in Telengana, the incentive is withheld if toilet is not a twin leach pit. In UP, there are no state specific guidelines for ensuring quality of construction to be monitored at every level. This could lead to problems in construction and eventually in technically sound toilets constructed. In the SQUAT survey, only 2.5% of households with a latrine were using a twin pit model. The SQUAT survey found that where government latrines were in use, they were likely to be single pit latrines that were not used by all family members. They might be used by women, by the infirm, or only for “emergencies.” Indeed, the privately constructed latrines in use in rural India are different from those in other developing countries because they have very large underground pits or septic tanks. The median pit size of a privately constructed latrine in the SQUAT survey was five times as large as the Indian government recommends. Many households aspire to owning pits even larger than that.The demand for very large pits and septic tanks drives of up the cost of constructing a latrine considerably. Much of the difference in cost between a Bangladeshi latrine, which might cost as little as 2,000 rupees, and an Indian latrine is due to the difference in the size of the underground pit. Government bodies also need to realize the limitations of promoting only one type of sanitation solution (the current brick super structure & twin pit system) and understand the different situations where this is not a suitable solution. An example of an unsolved sanitation related problem is the unsuitability of the twin pit toilet system as a solution in the 4

http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/850971468033846496/pdf/Swachh-Bharat-Appraisal-Stage-PID-Final-2015.pdf

11 flood prone regions. With a heavy clay soil profile and being a low plain in between multiple rivers, some areas may be prone to flooding every few years. This flooding risk is even more evident in the low lying areas that most low income communities occupy. Incidentally these communities have the maximum number of households who do not yet have toilets. Even otherwise groundwater enters the leach pits in a good rainfall year and fills them up. SLWM - Although SLWM is an integral component of national SBMG guidelines, the present focus is on achieving ODF status. As a result, States have generally not developed a State specific strategy for SLWM; targets are minimal unlike ODF; dedicated systems for HR, training and monitoring of progress are largely not found in any State. The experience from Punjab shows that while the state has achieved high toilet coverage, it has also compounded the problem of water pollution and diseases. It now needs an efficient and affordable sewage treatment system for the avoidance of surface pollution and groundwater contamination. Therefore, integrating the liquid and solid waste management and complete sanitation chain is needed to ensure the microenvironment and sustainable operations and maintenance should not be ignored. To sum up, action needs to taken on a number of fronts, such as:     

The mismatch between targets and budget provision should be sorted out. Construction of toilets is controlled by some middleman, and not by the household. This must be changed by better monitoring and flow of funds directly to the household. States should be disincentivised from doing inflated reporting. States should monitor the size of the pit, and withdraw subsidy if it is more than 100 cuft in size. Problems of those without land and of those areas unsuited for twin pits should be addressed.

Research issues If a new study is to be done, it could investigate the issues listed below. What percentage of toilets built with government funds during 2000-2014 are still operational and in use? If this percentage is very low, what is the guarantee that toilets built after 2014 would be sustained after, say, ten years? Is there a significant difference in the technology being followed before and after 2014? How is fecal matter being disposed off from the toilets built before 2014? How is the problem of defunct toilets being addressed? According to a UNICEF report (Status of Defunct toilet in Maharashtra & Estimated Expenditure to convert them to functional), India as a whole is burdened with 88.7 lakh dysfunctional or defunct toilet at baseline that requires to be converted into functional ones to achieve ODF status. Less than 1% have been converted into functional ones. What about the rest? How many toilets are being constructed by the household, panchayat, or other intermediaries? Who pays for the material and wages for mason etc? How is the mode of payment and supervision related to quality, durability, and sustained use? If households are in control of funds, how does each individual procure the material? A general tone of complaint reverberates through the villages that material required for construction of household toilet is not easy to get. There is no sanitary mart/production centre or any other alternative arrangement to ensure supply of materials at the door step of the household in an organized manner. Procuring in small quantity is difficult, which makes transportation cost quite high. Therefore how economic is direct procurement by the household because of the cost of transportation?

12 Status of community toilets: who maintains them and are they well maintained and used? In Maharashtra it was found that a community toilet was completely dilapidated and lying defunct since it has been located in a place with no access to water though the village is covered by piped water. How good is the quality of motivators (Swachhagrahi)? Are there too many vacancies in their cadre because persons with more competence leave for better jobs? A World Bank report found that in Bihar percentage of HR post filled at State and District level was only 40% and 17% respectively. Are they sufficiently motivated? Low remuneration, low travel support to visit villages and lack of supervision could be the major causes behind poor motivation. Delays in release of Central share: There is no overall shortage of funds for the programme. However, the way funds flow has many shortcomings Delays of up to 9 months in central release and lack of predictability in timing of release are reported in UP as issues. HH are motivated to invest own resources in some states, such as Bihar. A 2016 WB study found substantial delays in receipt of incentive amount by the beneficiaries in some states. There was delay in release of Central grant along with matching State share ranging from 35 to 90 days. Shortage of funds in some States/districts, esp where large scale construction was initiated has been reported such as in Gujarat, Odisha, and selected Rajasthan districts. How do the poor manage funds, and how is purchase and transportation of pan arranged? How efficient is the fund flow? Is there too much of delay in verification of muster rolls, taking measurements and releasing payments? The number of Junior Engineer in the block is limited and they take time to go to the village and complete documentation necessary to release funds. There should be more delegation to the GP to cut short the process and settling much matter as fast as possible at the GP level. Are poorer households being excluded from government subsidy because they cannot arrange for their own contribution? What about those households, especially in census towns who have no surplus land to build the toilet? One of the most direct ways in which people have been ‘triggered’ to stop going for open defecation has been by getting a group of people (sometimes under the name of nigrani or surveillance committee) to whistle people away from their defecation spots early in the morning. The trigger starts with a form of pressure, even though this is conceptualized as a ‘community led’ mechanism. More worrying from a sanitation point of view is the fact that these whistling squads only have their whistles as a device of persuasion. Indeed, no temporary toilets are provided, either to show people how to use them or to persuade them of the positive consequences of using a toilet. The impact of community pressure on toilet use should be studied. Conclusion To sum up, amidst the big noise about India’s ‘fast’ growing economy and its growth quotient, the country is still limping to attain total sanitation for its people. Raising demand of the households leading to desired change in behaviour and construction of self-financed toilets (with incentive money later) has behavioural, financial, administrative, as well as structural constraints, and cannot be achieved easily on a large scale. There is no proper maintenance of public toilets, including school toilets that are often under lock and key of the teachers. There are more than 26 lakhs dry latrines, where humans have to clean the other human’s excreta by hand. Despite tall claims and high promises, we are not able to abolish this inhuman practice and tradition. Thus challenges are of gigantic proportions. Prime Minister has rightly given a clarion call for mobilising peoples’ awareness on cleanliness, but the states too need to monitor the programme closely and fix accountability of ground staff through objective third party assessments, so that tendency to report inflated figures on targets is kept under check.