JAY JOSHI
Recently, chief minister Pramod Sawant had announced that the government will be setting up a number of bio-toilets in Goa. He had stated that around 538 twin toilets will be set up, which are estimated to cater to around 17,000 households. In addition, each ward in panchayat and municipal area will have community toilets, the government stated.
In simple terms, a bio-toilet is a toilet attached to a tank containing special bacteria that convert waste into usable gas. There are two types of bacteria-aerobic and anaerobic, out of which, the Indian bio-toilets developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) use the anaerobic bacteria which are reportedly brought specially from Antarctica.
Coming back to Goa, the deadline of August 31 set by the chief minister appears to be an ambitious one, and making Goa open defecation free is indeed a challenge. Elsewhere in India, a number of issues have been cited when it comes to bio-toilets, one of which is the number of users. In some states, the number of users has exceeded the capacity of the unit, leading to stink and overflow issues. In Bengal, bio toilets installed by the DRDO for testing had to be dismantalled due to restrictions on usage. On the other hand, non-use of the toilet also creates problems as the bacteria in the tank start to die after six months of starvation. Secondly, there is the issue of migrant population.
“The problem needs to be controlled at the root level,” says Abhijit Sadhale, an architect from Ponda, analysing possible roadblocks in the ODF campaign. “Proper toilets should be set up at construction sites and people need to be educated about proper hygiene. It is indeed difficult to control where migrant workers will go,” he adds.
The government has stated that people who engage in open defecation will be liable for fines. However, this is a rather tricky matter. How do the authorities plan to do that is a question and officials at the GWMC declined to comment on the issue.In Maharashtra, fines are generally considered the last resort, as authorities instead use other means to instil discipline among people who engage in open defecation. Such measures include playing a dhol at locations where people go for open defecation, or garlanding people who are returning from such an act.
The community toilets that the state is planning to build are perhaps aimed at addressing the needs of migrant labour. “Work has begun in five talukas for setting up community toilets, however, it has been hampered in the past few days owing to heavy rainfall,” informed Levinson Martins, managing director of Goa Waste Management Corporation. He, however, expressed confidence that the government body will achieve the goal of constructing all community toilets by the end of this month.
Apart from heavy rains, there are other roadblocks too which the government must overcome to set up toilets, informed other GWMC officials. “In addition to rain, the areas where these toilets are being set up are difficult to access. Also, the toilets that we are delivering are high-quality concrete toilets which are quite heavy,” an official stated. He further informed that only concrete is found suitable for Goan weather and many other materials such as asbestos sheets may not hold in the heat, humidity and monsoon,” he added.
Thus, monsoon, combined with inaccessibility of many rural areas seems to have compounded the challenges of setting up bio-toilets. In the light of these developments, sources stated that the government body expects to successfully set up around 1000 bio toilets by the end of this month, while the state government is aiming to finish around 17000.
