Improving Sanitation In South Asia
Need To Educate Public

SANITATION has a wide connotation. Generally, it relates to the safe disposal of human excreta, wastewater, solid waste, water supply, domestic and personal hygiene.

Problem

In many parts of South Asia, poor sanitation has contaminated subsoil water, which in turn is responsible for high morbidity, especially in regard to water-borne diseases. Dysentery, cholera, hepatitis, typhoid and other mass killer diseases are common in this region. The poor, elder people and children are main victims of these diseases. In most South Asian countries, sanitation and solid waste management are serious problems. Sewerage system, covering both conveyance and treatment, exist in 28 out of 300 class I cities in India.

No doubt, community-based systems, as demonstrated in the Orangi project in Karachi, slum improvement schemes in India and other low-cost pour-flush latrines have been promising initiatives. However, they have not scaled up.

In reality, there is complication in the operation and maintenance of sewerage in South Asia. After the introduction of sewerage in towns, the local authorities levy sewerage taxes to which there is opposition. It is because everybody has to pay regardless of having a sewer connection or not, Ironically, the maintenance cost of sewerage cannot be met through tax. However, increasing the tax rate would place it beyond the capacity of an ordinary man to pay.

Due to insufficient budget, the local authorities are unable to maintain the sewers even with cross subsidy.

Discharge of wastes and soil, insufficiency of flushing water and lack of proper cleaning and maintenance have resulted in leakage of sewers and many of them have become defunct. Adequate money spent on sewerage has thus become not beneficial.

Apart from development authorities, special purpose agencies particularly for water supply and sewerage were also established in South Asian cities. In many cases, the World Bank and other external donor agencies supported these agencies.

For improving sanitation, water and sanitation board or authorities were set up in Delhi, Dhaka, Karachi, Lahore and Statewide boards in Bihar, Kerala, Maharastra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and so on.

In the Indian State of Uttar Pradesh, a new law was passed to merge the numerous water organisations with the respective corporation. The constitutional amendment placed water supply and sanitation once again in the hands of the municipality.

Mumbai and Kolkata are two exceptions where the corporation still has the responsibility of handling water supply and sanitation and basic municipal functions.

In all South Asian countries, poor plastic and metal products are adequately used.

They are so short-lived that they fill up hundreds of containers every other day forcing an extra burden for the metropolis garbage managers. This problem has posed a great menace to these countries' environment.

In Nepal, about 80 per cent of the disease are due to poor sanitation. According to the sanitation report 1999/2000 prepared by the Department of Water Supply and Sewerage and UNICEF, poor sanitation is wreaking on Nepalese's health. The report states that some 28,000 children die of diarrhoea related disease every year. They die because of the lack of sanitation and clean water.
Only few districts out of Nepal's 75 districts have latrine coverage, placing the country at the bottom of the table in South Asia. This reveals that most Nepalese, especially rural people, defecate out in the open. Apart from this, washing hands after defecation and before handling food is not yet a habit with most Nepalese. This shows that an average Nepali life resides in a state of utter instantiation.
Considering the present condition, the concerned authorities should adopt a broad-based sanitation strategy with development programmes at the local level. They should emphasise on mobilisation of large number of community stakeholder.

Also, there is a need for a shift from the present centre directed sanitation programme. The shift should be in favour of local sanitation efforts, local initiatives and local leadership. Actually, it is impossible to find flaws with such work when there are already local level institutions with potentials to be agents of change. Village development committees, reported to be interested to take up the challenge of sanitation, could be such agency.

Sanitation a way of life is the quality of living that is expressed in clean homes, neighbourhood and a clean community.

Being a way of life sanitation undoubtedly must come from the people. It should be nourished by knowledge, grown as the obligations and deal in human relations.

The World Health Organisation defined sanitation as the control of all these factors in man's physical developments, health and survival.

Due to poor sanitation, water quality in most South Asian countries are adversely affected. In many parts of these countries, poor sanitation has contaminated subsoil water, which in turn is responsible for high morbidity, especially with respect to water-born diseases. Dysentry, cholera, typhoid, hepatitis and other mass killer diseases are common in these countries. The poor, elder people and children are main victims of these diseases.

No doubt, development authorities in South Asia have been effortful in augmenting water supply, expanding some services and developing new urban areas over a period of time. However, they have been facing problems such as political, interferences, poor performance, lack of public accountability and so on.

It has been estimated that the per capita solid waste generation is half kilogram per day in urban areas. Actually, collection and organised disposal rarely cover the total volume with the result that indiscriminate dumping in low land, water bodies, and hill slopes is rampant. In addition, the generation of hazardous wastes from industries and hospitals adds to this complexity.

Impact

The impact of improved sanitation on health has been particularly significant in reducing morbidity and mortality from intestinal diseases and Hellenistic infections. This has been proved by developed countries where sanitation is worth appreciating. Despite continuing endeavours, improving sanitation has been a serious problem in South Asian countries. To bring about improvement in the sanitation of these countries, it is of utmost importance to educate the public in a proper manner.

NPC Plans To Go Paperless

By Jawahar L. Amatya

NATIONAL Planning Commission (NPC) has started Information and Communication Technology (ICT) works within its offices. The aim is to computerise entire official work, phase-wise, to minimise digital divide among the offices and also the government organisations. Ultimate goal is to reach paperless system and to support the concept of e-Governance.

Own sites

To take Information Technology to common man, NPC has set up its own website www.npc.gov.np. Next extension of the NPC site activities is to host its Eight Divisions and Five Regional Offices separately. The Tenth Plan website (www.npc.gov.np/tenthplan) is already hosted for Nepalese as well as for the Global people which is also the first digital sharing of the Plan document of the country initiated by the National Planning Commission Secretariat (NPCS). The CD of the Tenth Plan website information is also proposed to release soon.

Computer and Information Center at NPC has set-up physical infrastructures for the configuration, implementation and all other ICT related works. Computer Networking using Local Area Network (LAN) within NPC is supported by five dedicated servers (One high end server and others normal PC) and about sixty workstations. It covers from Prime Minister's Office to Cabinet Secretariat. All five regional offices are connected to NPC's network through dial up connection. A new plan is in process to connect all Ministries with NPC's central network digitally for sharing information and to aid in integration of Ministries. NPC's Internet connection is via 64 kbps dedicated lease line. Its intranet service has been implemented within the NPC and dial-up connection from the remotely located offices. NPC is, thus, sharing as much information as possible through intranet.

In order to share all sorts of NPC related information to the domestic public and the entire world, full-fledged website is in place which is hosted twenty-four hours from the Computer and Information Center's Server. Two Private Computer Companies (Info.com and CAS Trading House) are supporting for the development of the website and other ICT related work. So far, latest technological designs have been incorporated during the developing phase of the site (www.npc.gov.np). The contents menu bars of the site have been furnished with all sorts of standard static and dynamic features of the web. Following menu bars are designed to incorporate the respective information : About NPC, National Planning Commission Secretariat and National Development Council, Profiles, Plans, Policies, Programmes and Projects , Publications, Reports, Committee, Multimedia and Links and Other Features such as of Search, Discussion forum, Comments and Suggestions, Chats, Opinion poll, Events, News etc are also available. NPC online tour (VR: Virtual Reality) is another attraction of the site.

In addition, NPC has also released Interactive Multimedia CD-Rom. Keeping in view of disseminating overall information about the Commission and the Secretariat, its activities, Publications including the Plan Documents and Approach papers of the Plans is available on the CD. Easily accessible, user-friendly, designs were used to provide information such as Brief Description of Nepal including HMG's Organisational Charts, National Development Council and National Planning Commission. Special attractions of the CD were the Seventy Five District Maps by Ward, Documents, Reports, and On-going Plans, Programmes and Projects. Browsing facility of online and offline Web Contents and direct links to HMG Ministries/Department, Banks, UN Organisation and Donor Organisations and other National and International Organisations and Resource Centers of interest is also offered on the CD.

To make the government offices proactive and responsive, site update is very important and it is a continuous process, thus, NPC has been regular updating mechanism of the site to meet the requirement of the Commission and others as well. NPC is always in the stage of developing and making the best use of ICT. In order to achieve the goal of total computerisation, it is planning to develop web based custom software to automate various modules to increase efficiency and also retain the authenticity. After testing phase, NPC plans to decentralise this network and provide access to village and district level.

NPC Nepali Font has been developed for consistency and uniformity in the publication and web hosting. NPC also plans to use the same version of Operation System and Packages to minimise conflicts in sharing of information. Another proposition includes establishing coordinated information system at the NPC through the implementation of the Government ISP.

The overall information is through the digital linkup with Intranet and Internet. The sources of information are from inside as well as outside of NPC Servers. Inside includes divisions, section and Hon'ble Vice Chairman, Members and Member Secretary of NPC along with the Cabinet Secretariat and the Prime Minister's Office are hosted online service through Intranet, whereas five Regional offices are in dial-up connection for sharing of information. Remaining other sources fall under both manual as well as electronic media.

All Micro and Macro level data and information storage takes place in the Centralised Database System and published in the internet as well. The Information Management has been always guided/supported by Statistical System of data and information at the NPC Computer and Information Center. The system is trying to have strong complementary digital link between different tiers of the Ministries. This link would be to serve as 'convergent' planning i.e., as the digital interface between the "bottom-up" identification of people's needs, constraints, opportunities and potential, and the "top-down" concern of national priorities, policy guidelines and public resource allocation.
Another IT works of NPC is related with GIS Mapping. It is equipped with a capability for compiling and preparing both spatial and non-spatial socio-economic and biophysical information at District level. At present, the system has produced GIS based resource and development maps of over thirty District of Nepal. It has been strengthening its programmes in the District to build a District Information Unit (DIU) for creating spatial information hub to support local level planning and also to link-up into central level NPC GIS mainstream. The system has its own publications on GIS.

Obstacle

Intention of Web Site Development and ICT works initiation so far has seen little effort towards establishing digital academician/academic. Fundamental constraints or obstacle facing during the developmental phase is that the functioning, still, in the stage of lack of know-how. However, it can not generalise to all. Another tragedy of the ICT works in practice is that in most of the cases it has been taken as a service tool rather giving it as an economic sector of development. Thus to justify ICT works and also for its overall exploitation into the developmental process, it should be equipped with digital academician/academic.