In current context of sustainable development concern is mounting over an ever growing list of environmental issues across rural India. By tradition, Indian society and culture values personal hygiene but gives little importance to clean and healthy community environment. Human excreta is regarded as the most hated object and anything connected to latrine is considered so defiling that one is supposed to take a bath immediately after coming out of the toilet and before going in to kitchen due to psychological and religious taboos. Sanitation is, therefore , regarded as a matter of individual initiative and not a collective obligation of the community and under this socio-cultural background, environmental sanitation has sadly been given the lowest priority.
For a healthy living we all require a healthy environment and sanitation is regarded to be one of the core components of the same. As far as the concept only with the various methods and technologies of safe disposal of human excreta, the Central Rural Sanitation Programme of India has updated and upgraded the perception of sanitation by incorporation the components like liquid and solid waste disposal , food hygiene, personal hygiene in the context of health improvement, school and home sanitation, and safe water and garbage disposal . In short , sanitation is being considered as a comprehensive initiative for a healthy environment with in a community with the top priority of separation excreta with its host of biological pathogens, from contact with human beings as well as plant and animal life.
Now coming to the environmental concern of a rural nation like India where about 70% of its people live in the villages- these days the question of improving the sanitation in villages in gaining much attention of both the people and the government as inadequate sanitation always puts an adverse effect on the environment; without a clean, safe toilet close to home people are forced to live in an unhealthy and unpleasant environment. One gram of faeces can contain ten million viruses, one million bacteria, one thousand cyst parasites and about a hundred worm eggs – so the danger of disease is massive and when any waste is exposed and clean water and hygiene education are limited, all people in the community are vulnerable to illness caused by faeces. On the other hand if we look into statistics then it shows that every year around 1.8 million children mostly from rural areas, die of diseases such as cholera , typhoid and dysentery caused by unclean water and poor sanitation’ in this regard rural women and girl are the most disadvantaged section as in absence of a well-built toilet at home , they often have to wait till dark for going to the field for open defecation which make them vulnerable to illness as well as sometimes to sexual-assault. Moreover sickness due to insanitary condition takes children away from school and adults away from earning an income .Medical expenses make massive demands on the limited incomes of the rural poor.
Rural Environment:
The deteriorating rural environment is not only creating problem for rural population but also emerging as a threat to urban India, since rural India is the key provider of agricultural and other indigenous products being consumed being by the big cities.
Rural lifestyles have close links with nature and its resources. Thus the environmental problems that manifest in rural areas of the country are largely due to over-use or misuse of resources mostly because of sheer poverty, ignorance and lack of alternatives. The denudation of vegetative cover due to expansion of agricultural activities , indiscriminate collection for firewood and the overgrazing by cattle and other livestock and consequent soil erosion are good examples of the impoverishment of environmental resources. Rural communities are generally resource conscious and the amount of the waste generated in villages is , therefore, much less than in urban centers. Also the nature and composition of waste is different in villages from that of cities. Most of the waste generated in villages is from individual households, whereas in urban areas, commercial establishments and institutions are also an important source of waste in village households is much higher than that in the cities. This is mainly because of different life styles, consumption patterns, food habits, etc. Traditionally, the village communities never considered anything as waste and had well-managed waste management system which allowed for maximum recycling and reuse of waste. However , with increase in population , the qualities of waste have increased several fold , where as the resources available for its management such as land availability for composting of organic waste- have diminished over time. These wastes are therefore, now dumped in the open and are managed unscientifically, leading to problems of environmental sanitation in rural India.
Realizing the adverse impact of sanitation on environmental as well as for recognizing and encouraging the efforts of Panchayati Raj Institution under Total sanitation Campaign, Nirmal Gram Puraskar (NGP) was initiates by the Government on October 2, 2003. A’Nirmal Gram’ signifies an ‘open defecation free’ village with all houses, schools and anganwadis having sanitary toilets besides awareness amongst communities about the importance of maintaining personal and community hygiene, good sanitation and clean environment. But when we look into the very recent statistics, we notice that out of 2.5 lakh gram panchayats of this country, only 25,000 have received ‘Nirmal Gram’ status- which signifies that only 10 percent of Indian villages have full sanitation coverage.
Sanitation coverage
Taking into account the difference research finding and survey-result on total sanitation campaign, it can be suggested that increasing sanitation coverage in rural areas would require more clarity of the issue and understanding of the rural sensibilities . Building toilers is just one half of the battle; the other half is to make people use them. Merely building latrines. It must be combined with hygiene education which is designed to encourage changes in people ‘s personal behavioural pattern and outlook as well as to block the faecal-oral transmission route and reduce the spreads of diseases. This is the high time for the social scientist to look at society’s collective blindness towards the practice of open defection and the reluctance to change. Despite the high rate of urbanization- the rural population is still characterized by ignorance and poverty, and the attitudes of these people are mainly influences by age-old cultural beliefs and values. So to protect rural environment on sustainable manner through proper environmental sanitation , rural people need to change their attitudes and beliefs toward the whole issue. Lastly it may be concluded that though concern is mounting over an ever growing list of environmental issues across the nation but compared to urban India, we can still find a much better , safer and cleaner environment across the villages of this country, where one can at least breathe contentedly in fresh air.
Source:KURUKSHETRA
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