Innovation

• Innovation practices in Sanitation, Cleanliness, Education etc
• Nirmal Wari (Name of the initiative means pure procession) is addressing the issue for Pandharpur people which is related to cleanliness
• Broader part of Swaach Bharat (Clean India mission)
• Vijnana Bharati is a bridge between research organizations and societal problems

Inspiration

• Being a Maharashtrian, Mr. Sakhare, along with his colleagues, used to participate in this holy ritual every year
• As a result, he was aware of the issues that members and other pilgrims faced when they were a part of the holy journey
• Thus out of a personal sense of responsibility and empathy towards the pilgrims, Mr. Sakhare, along with Vijnana Bharati, came up with this initiative.

Overall impact

Vijnana Bharati saw that wherever the procession of Pandharpur pilgrimage (Pandharpur is a village situated in Maharashtra, India) stopped, the villagers over there used to give them basic necessities like food and water to drink apart from the toilet facility. Due to lack of toilet facilities, the pilgrims used to defecate in open. So they started convincing these people to use the portable toilets which they were offering. At first, the people were sceptical about it and it took a long time for them to adapt to this practice. After that 60% of the approximate 1 million pilgrims started to use the portable toilets

The mechanism of these portable toilets was of storing the human waste and later on it was sent for disposal. As the portable toilets had been put to use it was seen that almost 80000-90000 litres of a slurry was produced on an average per day.This huge amount of slurry became an issue as it was hard to dispose of. Then Vijnana Bharati took it up as a challenge. In doing that they started searching for new technologies and organizations which could help with the quick disposal of this slurry. Other associations, NGOs and companies were approached for optimal design of toilets for faster disposal of slurry. CISR Lab & DRDO came up with bio-toilets as a solution which could dispose the waste at a faster rate. However, this was a temporary solution and later Agarkar Research Institute came up with new findings on a bacteria which could decompose the slurry at a much more faster rate. So this technology is being used now for the disposal of waste. The impact of this finding was that the decomposing of waste is taking place at a much faster rate and almost all the people have started using the portable and bio-toilets improving the sanitation of the state.

Modern Sanitation:

• 1. Most Indians still do not have access to modern sanitation. For example, rural sanitation coverage was estimated to have reached only 21% by 2008 according to the UNICEF/WHO joint monitoring program. The improved condition of sanitation is due the numerous innovative steps taken in the sector of Total Sanitation Campaign led by community and the monetary based reward system of the Nirmal Gram Puraskar.

  2. The woefully inadequate progress in sanitation makes India an outlier even among developing countries. Of the estimated billion people who defecate in the open, more than half reside in India. Due to poor sanitation conditions in India has led to increased number of cases of malnutrition and losses in productivity. India’s sanitation deficit leads to losses worth roughly 6% of India’s gross domestic product (GDP), according to World Bank estimates, by raising the disease burden in the country. Children are affected more than adults. The wide spread of diseases in children results in their lack of ability to absorb the nutrients which shunts their growth.

Business benefit

Vijnana Bharati along with a couple of scientific organisations, set up portable toilets and tried a lot of scientific methods to improvise on them. Earlier, when there was no availability of portable toilets, the pilgrims suffered acute sanitation problems. A lot of health problems were noticed among the pilgrims, due to lack of hygiene. A significant amount of money, infrastructure and human resources were spent by government organisations to clean the waste and to maintain hygiene post the wari which was a great challenge. But ever since Vijnana Bharati has initiated this portable toilets set up, the money and the resources required for post wari cleanliness has reduced significantly. This is because of the portable toilets that reduced the labour work required. They also reduced the possibility of health diseases spreading.

Social and environmental benefit

Vijanana Bharati had not just stopped by setting up the portable toilets. It also went ahead with the various transformations and improvisations that are required for a better overall benefit. They challenged various research organisation like DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organization) and CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) to come up with an optimal solution for faster decomposition of waste generated. Agarkar Institute of Research had come up with a non-bacterial solution for 99% guaranteed decomposition.

They even considered importing the Pee Pu bags. These bags can be used in locations where the portable toilets can’t be installed. They can be used mostly while travelling from one place to another. These bags were essentially helpful for the older crowd of the pilgrims. They consulted DRDO to come up with their own version of these bags so as to avoid importing them.

A couple of years back the High court has passed an order that, if there is too much pollution at Pandharpur, then the pilgrims would be stopped and people would not be allowed to take their holy bath in Chandrabagha river. The effect and status of the river 2 years after Vijanana Bharati has taken up the issue is that, the Chandrabagha river is absolutely clean. They have set up more than 2000 portable toilets and more than 1000 volunteers in Pandharpur. They made it to a point that Pandharpur is one of the cleanest and less polluted place where people could come and have a peaceful stay without any interruptions.

Excerpts from the conversation which highlight the various societal and environmental benefits explained by Mr. Sakhare: "Yes, so basically over a period we are expecting a sustainable model out of it that this establishment of portable toilets should happen through government machinery. The public participation from the local villages should come up and the people should offer land and rest of the services voluntarily and whatever is the bio compost generated, that should be auctioned every year. This should be made available to the locals and the general public of the same village. In the near future, after bio-composting, making it available to the general public, that is again revenue generation from the revenue model. That is expected, yes. Food and plastic waste can be converted to bio-diesel. Even this type of possibility is being explored."

Interview

Mr. Kaustubh Sakhare, Joint Secretary of western region of India