Swachh toilets, on whose land?

The Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) that was launched on the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on October 2, 2014, perplexes me with some pertinent questions regarding its implementation.

The immediate question is how the construction of household/community toilets, a major component in the objectives of the mission, has been achieved in instances where the status of land tenure is insecure. Even if there are no land tenure security issues, how has the mission addressed the issue of land and space constraints? Invariably, the social discourse around gender, class and caste lines cannot be dismissed for implementing a mission of such a great scale and intensity.

Lastly, has the government ensured a roadmap for objective-based monitoring and evaluation so that the objectives of the mission are not only limited to just achieving the targets?

The SBM-Urban was launched in the year 2014 with a five-year target to ensure hygiene, waste management and sanitation by 2019. The estimated cost of its implementation was pegged at Rs 62,009 crore.

If one looks at the progress, the mission has achieved more than what was set as the target for its successful implementation. For instance, the mission has constructed more than 62 lakh individual toilets which is much more than the target of 58 lakh. Similarly, more than 6 lakh community and public toilets have been constructed against the target of 5 lakh. Moreover, out of the total 4,557 cities, 4,371 have been declared open defecation free (ODF).

The incredulous achievement of the mission is baffling on various grounds. The first concern that appears to be missing in the guidelines of the mission is the issue of land tenure security. The guidelines of the mission mention that the “beneficiary households will be targeted irrespective of whether they live in authorised/unauthorised colonies or notified/notified slums… tenure security issues are to be de-linked with benefits”.

Access to secure land is the most imperative challenge in urban areas due to the complexity of land tenure, scarcity of land, soaring land prices, land mafia and grabbing. The majority of the population in urban areas is forced to live in informal land settlements and slums thus facing the continuous threat of demolition and eviction. It is extremely baffling to understand how the mission has delinked the issue of land tenure security.

Second, the issue of dwindling land space in urban settlements is another concern that policymakers have not been able to address. In the six major metros of the country (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru) approximate 48% of the residents have been migrants as per the census 2011 estimates.

The impact of inward migration for better livelihood and employment opportunities on land has been immense and the unalarming growth of migrants also leads to an increase in the number of informal settlements that grow around railway tracks and congested lanes with dwindled land space.

Third, how has the mission been able to overcome the social skirmishes around caste, class and gender lines? In a structurally biased society, gender, class and caste play important roles in getting access to livelihood, resources and basic facilities like drinking water, sanitation, housing, drainage etc. These factors stop women from accessing clean, sanitary and hygienic facilities.

Lastly, has the Union government ensured a roadmap for objective-based monitoring and evaluation? Out of the 4,371 towns declared as ODF, it is important to introspect whether they can really be classified as ODF and whether they have been able to overcome the issues as discussed.

When I visited various slums in Odisha as part of the RMIT University-Centre for Land Governance research study, I was astonished to see most of the slums constructed under SBM-U with an estimated cost of Rs 5.5 lakh per toilet lying dilapidated and unused within just six months of construction.

The mission in its guidelines highlights that it will undergo third party evaluation and impact evaluation studies but categorically limits the evaluation during the course of its implementation to effect mid-term correction and align the mission to achieve its objectives. The objectives of the SBM-U only limit themselves to achieving the targets with a lack of holistic planning and due diligence for monitoring and evaluation.

(The writer is Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, St. Xavier's College, Jaipur)