Amidst a reported mismatch between the Centre and States on the number of new toilets built under the Swachh Bharat campaign, Adil Zainulbhai, Chairman, Quality Council of India (QCI), which has a mandate to measure and rank cities and districts, has claimed that over 90 per cent of new toilets in the 100 best districts ranked by it are being used. The former McKinsey India chief, who was chosen by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to head QCI in September 2014, told Businessline the challenges ahead are huge and the lesson he’s learnt is that getting the community involved is key to making India clean.
After close to two years of the Swachh Bharat campaign, do you see any difference on the ground?
On the ground, toilets are actually being built in a big way. We have video-taped, taken pictures and asked people how it has affected their lives. I have two-three observations. One, a huge number of toilets are really being built.
In the best districts that we looked at, all schools have toilets and the community has come together to make it work. They have created WhatsApp groups to make it work.
Also, six-nine months after these toilets were built in schools, the attendance of girl children has gone up. That’s the huge difference that toilets are making.
Starting with children is a great idea….and it works well not because the government is involved, but because the community is involved.
I can say that in the best districts, over 90 per cent of the toilets built are being used. You will see that when the results of the 100 best districts in Swachh Bharat Gramin are declared on August 24.
The rankings of 150 open defecation-free cities will also be out around October 2.
But, isn’t sanitation closely linked with water availability, sewage treatment, drainage etc, which are inadequate? What about maintenance of toilets?
If you try to anticipate and solve all problems, you will never be able to. You learn as you go along. Many people said mindsets need to be changed first, but my view is that mindset change in the country of our size is a huge challenge.
As for water availability, where there is drought, sanitation is a big issue. But, say, in hilly States, there is enough water….
As regards maintenance, when the entire village, the district collector, block officer get together, things work. If it’s not a people’s movement, it will not work. And if it can be done in 100 good districts, it proves that it is possible to scale up. Now, the challenge is to expand to all 547 districts in the country.
You have been in the private sector all along. How’s your experience been in government?
In the private sector, we used to think that the government is useless. What I found after these two years is that when the government gets the right set of people to push things, then the scale of things that get done is impossible for the private sector to do.
Do you think Swachh Bharat targets are attainable by 2019?
Swachch will take more than three years. It’s a long-term thing. Look at the sewage system in our cities — these are archaic and need to be redone. Water per citizen is not enough, solid waste disposal is not enough, waste segregation at household level is not being done.
The challenges are massive and will take many years, but that doesn’t mean we don’t start work.
What do you see as one big challenge while working with the government?
There are many other areas where we are not getting the same level of energy as in Swachh Bharat, Jan Dhan, Aadhaar etc...For instance, why is that Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala have better education and health outcomes?
It’s not one government or the other. Kerala has invested a lot in education and health; TN and Karnataka, too. Certain States are consistently better. So, how does one get States to push? One idea was to get the States into competition (by ranking them).
Naming and shaming works very well. Nobody wants to be at the bottom and nobody wants to give up the top position. It’s (ranking) a motivational tactic.