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Down the Drain: How the Swachh Bharat Mission Is Heading for Failure
- marze 9y agoI hope the government at least partially reaches its goals. There are obviously infinite possible approaches to the problem. This is how I'd solve it if I were the government: Set up collecting points and pay a generous sum per gallon of poo. The challenge would be to avoid fraud, but inspection combined with occasional random audits and penalties might work. Or issuing tokens for using the latrine.
- mattnewton 9y agoThis reminds me of this crazy Korean animated film called aachi and ssipak where the government payed people in addictive candies for their waste, which it used to produce electricity. Like that film I would imagine the incentives would have unintended side effects, like encouraging more manual scavenging. I think the money is better spent on infrastructure and public outreach. The problem doesn't seem as much that people want to relieve themselves outside, but that it is the best option available to them right now.
- ak39 9y agoIt might not be a bad idea for the Indian government to start with open defecation toilets that collect raw sewerage for processing. A large part of the problem in slums is the issue of safety in confined units like public toilets.
- marze 9y agoThe free market works well generally, why not here? To try to reverse generations of social tradition where only "lower" people are involved with waste, the govt. should really pay high rates for waste, which would work to reverse this tradition by elevating the social status of the workers involved. You miss the point in any case. By paying for waste delivered (and perhaps tokens to minimize fraud), you would create a cottage industry of portable toilets, and solve the problem with one simple policy. Another incentive based strategy would be to make cash bonuses to local officials based on the fraction of residents in their district actually used toilets. This could be measured by randomized surveys and spot checks. All problems can be improved with properly designed financial incentives.
- gjkood 9y agoQuick question. How is the issue of human waste processing done in large scale temporary human accommodations such as a military forward operations base or a large scale construction township? Would it have the necessary sewage handling/treatment facilities built first or are there temporary systems that can handle a sudden surge in the generation of human waste away from any pre-existing sewage treatment facilities?
- hn_throwaway_99 9y agoYou dig a hole. A deep hole. Away from water supplies. And then you shit in the hole: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_latrine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_latrine
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- th1nkdifferent 9y agoFor those who don't know what India's prime minister is doing, please read this. It is just part of Swachh Bharat Mission - https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Indias-War-on-Human-Waste https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Indias-War-on-Human-W...
- ploxiln 9y agoIt's interesting to juxtapose Bill Gates' report with the much more detailed and first-hand one linked here. Without having more certainty than is warranted, it seems plausible that Bill Gates took Prime Minister Modi's word at face value, even though it was apparently all political bluster, and he should not have.
- srean 9y agoNow, if it were contaminated water in mandir's offering to the devotees, the same party would be falling over themselves to proclaim it is pristine and then hound the health officials no end, branding them as unpatriotic,closet Pakistani etc etc. So it goes.
- xenadu02 9y agoI don't understand enough about how Indian government works to answer this question: Why can't they lay down sewers and water supplies in urban areas, at least to start with?
- fractalb 9y agoSimple. Money!
- sacheendra 9y agoThe problem isn't so simple. If throwing money could solve the problem, it would have already been solved. The problem is that laying sewers or installing water supplies involved dealing with the local population and make them understand why it is important that the roads are dug and the sewers installed. Why should the population spend money to connect their house to the sewer? Also, this takes planning at the city level because, once laid, the sewer needs to connected to a larger pipes so that the waste may be transferred somewhere else. Now, people living in the other area need to be convinced that their fellow humans need the sewers and their roads should be dug up. The roads being dug up is a placeholder for infrastructure work related to installing pipes. As long as people don't see it as a serious problem, they will try to avoid the inconvenience of installing sewers. This is just the cynic in me, but sometimes I think politicians let it be a problem so that they can use it in the next election season.
- fractalb 9y agoOur governments are in no position to pour money into educating people/changing their habits. All the planning that you mentioned needs money that we don't have(OR politicians don't want to spend)
- kalleboo 9y agoDo people living in slums who are literally shitting in the street really have the political clout to participate in NIMBYism?
- morekozhambu 9y agoThis is a very old post!!
- yesprabhu 9y agoIts the current cover story report of Caravan magazine. How old it could be?
- car 9y agoThe UN estimated that 65,000 tonnes of uncovered, untreated faeces—equal to the weight of around 180 Airbus A380s—were being introduced into the environment in India every single day. This is an issue of mind boggling scale.
- panzer_wyrm 9y agoI am sure that Airbus management is delighted with their best plane being associated with huge piles of shit. India has definitely a problem with this - it was the only country I was warned about to never drink or eat anything outside of the hotel from friends that had traveled all around the world. In the Sheraton the water was crystal clear - I think they had in house water plant. In the tech park next to it - it was yellow.
- ageofwant 9y agoIn Mumbai, bout 15 years ago we had a 'hotel boy', he came in every morning and evening and swept the balcony clean of the day's accumulated soot. People shitting, pissing and spitting in the street everywhere, all the time. A jarring experience. I'll tell you one thing for sure, if ever the world gets wiped out by some global pandemic, the last man standing will be and Indian, pissing in the street.
- mdns33 9y agoDon't give this rubbish and fake facts. You make it sound like majority of Indians are okay living in a shit hole.
- mdns33 9y agoThe whole of india is like a giant trash can. Indian here.
- dhanainme 9y agoHow does this add value to this discussion ? Indian here too :)
- reacweb 9y agoAs a foreigner, this anecdotal opinion helps me to understand Indian mindset.
- mdns33 9y agoThere is nothing anecdotal here. It was a way to summarize the problem we have at large. As the comment above describes how he lives surrounded by garbage. That's how the whole country is unfortunately.
- Rakshith 9y agoUnfortunately, this is how a lot Indians feel good about themselves, cuckoldry. Its a really strange behavior
- mdns33 9y agoBy stating a hard fact?
- dominotw 9y agoThere are two open plots of land on both sides of my house and its filled with garbage from neighbours using it as open air trashcan. I've knocked at the door of every single neighbour's apartment and told them about it but to no avail. Now we live between two giant trash bins filled with garbage. To make the matters worse some enterprising urban pig farmers are using it to feed their pigs, they let them out in the garbage and come pick them up at night. It's quite embarrassing to explain random pig squeals on conference calls with US colleagues. I hate India so much. I love India so much. #LifeInIndia
- throwaway312312 9y agoWhy is this surprising ? Modi entire term has been him acting too impulsively, either for PR or by being misguided by his advisors. I mean the man has no dignity; who brings up these issues publicly on an international forum ? Running water is not something you come across rural India very often. Toilets are bound to stink. NO person in his right mind would use one. This one move has even brought back manual scavenging jobs back to the poor who have little access to education or power (literally and figuratively). Skilling India, eh ? Shaming your citizens for the complete uselessness of the state becomes "statesmanship" ? Is this guy some colonial governor ? Frankly, Modi is a disappointment to everyone. Worse, his and the stupidity of his promoters will almost entirely destroy the credibility of the nativist camp which supported him, for decades to come. BJP has lived up to its name: Congress with a Cow (which is then smuggled to the Butcher).
- ahamedirshad123 9y agoOccupy Hacker News in a few hours. Bhakts are everywhere. Still can't digest the fact how they conquered Quora. Hope they stay away from your post :)
- sevensor 9y agoPlease forgive my ignorance -- who are the Bhakts? I've been off Quora since the interesting questions disappeared about two years ago.
- amalantony06 9y agoBhakths are devotees of Modi. "Bhakth" in Hindi/Sanskrit means devotee. They are like the die hard Trump fans in the US. They usually come in hordes and attack any content against Modi on the web usually by unethical tactics like questioning your character/love for country, down-voting, mass reporting, abusing and general trolling - whatever it takes to shut the critics up. Modi is part human and part mythical figure for the Bhakths - I kid you not :).
- 9y ago
- OliverJones 9y agoIn the west a couple of hundred years ago, we used a mixture of religion and shame to achieve the transformation of behavior necessary to meet these sanitation goals. "Cleanliness is next to godliness" was a slogan of that movement. It took, more or less, a century to make the change. A big step in the right direction was the 1854 discovery by Dr. John Snow that removing the handle from a public water pump in London could slow a cholera pandemic. The well was contaminated by human feces. Steven Johnson wrote it up in his book The Ghost Map. http://www.worldcat.org/title/ghost-map-the-story-of-londons-most-terrifying-epidemic-and-how-it-changed-science-cities-and-the-modern-world/oclc/70483471 http://www.worldcat.org/title/ghost-map-the-story-of-londons... A board of church directors (a vestry) owned that pump, and Dr. Snow had to talk them into approving his plan. It wasn't easy: he was denying the conventional pious wisdom of the time. But they went for it. Then cleaning up cities required major advances in civil engineering technology: things we take for granted today in the west, like interceptor sewers and and treatment plants. Whether or not PM Modi is a politician who toots his own horn is irrelevant to this project. Its benefits will outlast everyone alive today. Go for it, India!
- eni 9y agoInteresting points! I can't quite remember where I came across this (most likely in a TED talk), and details I can recollect are very vague but here is a horrifying tidbit from history: In those days, apparently people used to collect excreta in some form of bins, and dump it out in the streets. People used to drop it from multi floor buildings also :( It was mentioned that if a man is taking a woman on date, while walking in the street he has to keep the woman on the side of the street; While the man himself is walking on the side of the buildings (imagine man, woman walking hand in hand, side by side). Why? in case someone throws unpleasant things from a window above, it is the man who will take the (s)hit. Sorry if it is unbelievably outrageous, but apparently that was our past :(
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- nate_meurer 9y agoTFA says this: > “widespread open defecation in rural India is not attributable to relative material or educational deprivation, but rather to beliefs, values, and norms about purity, pollution, caste and untouchability that cause people to reject affordable latrines.” Would someone kindly explain this to me?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- baahh3333 9y agoPlease do not stereotype India. India is a very huge country. Not every part of India is the same especially with cleanliness. Kerala is a small state in India with the highest literacy level. There is no open defecation in Kerala. Infact if you read about Kerala, you will be very surprised how different it is from the rest of India. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala_model
- Rakshith 9y agoYeah sure about it, which is why they do everything they can to seep into Bangalore and migrate here so they can throw their trash here. If its so good, just go back.
- baahh3333 9y agoSure about what ? 'they do everything' what ? migrate where ? go back where ? I have no idea what you mean. Care to explain a bit ?
- Rakshith 9y agoIf you're not a Malyali, why are you shilling for them? AFAIK they are a clan who only give a shit about each other.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- baahh3333 9y agoI don't think this is a forum for these kinds of discussions. Please be more civilized about it. Ironically, your handle has "shit" on it.
- andrewksl 9y agoThe numbers in India are staggering, but I was even more blown away by the news that Bangladesh managed to get open defecation down from 44% in 2003 to 1% today. https://www.thethirdpole.net/2016/03/03/open-defecation-ends-in-bangladesh-almost/ https://www.thethirdpole.net/2016/03/03/open-defecation-ends...
- Rakshith 9y agoThis thread is a display of the lack in self respect many Indians have. Their public humiliation of the country that they live in, that they're right now eating their food and breathing their air in. No, it does not help anyone let alone yourself if you think your experiences are true account for everyone else and what you're saying reflects your stupidity, you don't deserve a chance nor a better life because the moment something wrong happens, you will be back to blaming the system, you don't even contribute to making it better so what gives you the right to spin lies here? If this was Facebook I would have ensured the public authorities would come to attention and have the police knock on your door. So before you comment, think. think if what you're going to say is useful at all and then do it. Part of me hopes that you're doing it because you don't want more whites to come here and take your jobs but I am familiar with the tone you complain like a 12 year old that it is simply not the case. HN needs moderators to put away these children.
- nate_meurer 9y agoPolice should knock on our doors? Moderators should "put away these children"? You're in the wrong place here. A look at your comment history tells me you already know this.