WASH In India: Time For The Leap Ahead

There is better and faster use of social enterprise in WASH sector. It is found that these efforts cannot be entirely charity activities. Focus on both charity and profit is generally at the cost of the other. The recently released State of Humanitarian System 2022 report suggested to find new ways to address funding needs, including that of WASH. Social enterprise, working on no-profit no-cost basis with focus on social impact, is an obvious way to address future needs in disaster-affected communities. The needs, and social market, are growing faster in the past two decades due to Swachh Bharat Abhiyan campaign and repeated disasters.

Far more involvement of farmers and rural communities in related preparedness and anticipation is needed to avoid scattered, thin, and long-distance coverage in floods or drought-affected rural India, including those in marginal environments. Trans-boundary work of Dr. Lars Otto of Institute of Development Studies (IDS), UK, and Saleem-ul-Huq of International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) in Dhaka suggests that local rural leadership is taking adaptive measures to address the challenges. Donors like Global Resilience Fund need to support such efforts in marginal environments. Each flood and cyclone in the past decade shows that WASH sector can do better, reach out to all, including Dalits and minorities, if it involves more rural leaders, farmers, and others. Methods and tools for new emergencies such as heatwaves and salinity ingress can be addressed with local adaptation measures by farmers and rural leaders.

An ongoing appreciative inquiry of the efforts is overdue. Sphere India has developed a handbook, which is useful, and time has come to find out how it is performing in the light of recent floods in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. What is needed is sympathetic, but accurate and factual, rating of performances through appreciation of efforts done by private and public sector in offering services to affected population. This can be done using Geographic Information System (GIS), natural science tools, Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), and social science tools.

Anticipating WASH activities need not be over-emphasised. More disasters, more often, and for longer periods will demand WASH response. It is found that anticipatory actions reduce losses and damages, and multiply impact in terms of saving lives, and protecting health and incomes.

Repository of such anticipatory action-related data and digital initiatives is overdue. There are no repositories that can be used by state disaster management authorities, such as in Assam and Odisha, or trusts and foundations, like Tata Relief Trust and HCL Foundation, in humanitarian responses. Review of reopening 120 schools and WASH in the pandemic in rural Kutch districts of Gujarat by AIDMI suggests a need for repository in every district. Without it, risk-informed investments cannot be effective at district levels.

Transformative pathways are being suggested by TAPESTRY project, led by Lyla Mehta of IDS, UK, in marginal environments of, say, coastal Kutch; coastal Mumbai; and delta areas of Sundarbans. What is found is high-level of illiteracy about transformation potential and transformative pathways in WASH sector, including the role of water harvesting. The authorities do not know how WASH efforts can build back better, and also transform the sector to resilience and sustainability. The ambitious agenda of India-initiated and India-based global Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure can help design, develop, and finance such pathways in India and abroad.

It is high time that a sector wide task force is set up by National Disaster Management Authority to fill in the continued gaps in India, and take a leap to consolidate gains and use them to share with other countries.

Mihir R. Bhatt Director, All India Disaster Mitigation Institute