Inclusive and Sustainable Rural Sanitation in India
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31305/rrijm2025.v05.n03.003Keywords:
Rural sanitation, Inclusive sanitation, Sustainable sanitationAbstract
In the world's second most populous nation, providing ecologically safe sanitation to its citizens is a difficult task. Personal hygiene and health depend heavily on having access to clean drinking water and proper sanitation. Thus, it is clear how water, sanitation, and health are related. Consumption of tainted drinking water, inappropriate disposal of human waste, inadequate environmental sanitation, and inadequate personal and nutritional hygiene have all been connected to a number of diseases in underdeveloped countries. This also holds true for India. The high neonatal death rate that is currently common is also mostly caused by poor sanitation. The Indian government launched the Swachh Bharat Mission on October 2, 2014, with the goal of outlawing open defecation across the country. Since then, Swachh Bharat Mission-Grameen (SBM-G) has made significant progress. The people's involvement turned the Mission into a jan andolan, or people's movement, which was the main catalyst for the sanitation revolution that led to the formation of India ODF. After achieving these results, it is now crucial to maintain the progress gained under the Mission and make sure that the benefits for health and cleanliness continue. In light of this, the current paper reviews India's inclusive and sustainable rural sanitation system and makes recommendations for how to make it better. The paper's primary sources are critical reviews of relevant literature and secondary data.
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