SACOSAN important to solve regional social, economic problems, India’s sanitation minister says

Indian Minister Birender Singh Chaudhary believes discussions on sanitation, which is a common challenge in South Asia, can promote regional cooperation and the member countries should meet frequently on this development issue.

He spoke to bdnews24.com on the sidelines of the South Asian conference on sanitation, known as SACOSAN, in Dhaka on Wednesday.

Chaudhary led the Indian delegation as the Minister for Rural Development, Panchayti Raj, Drinking Water and Sanitation.

This conference is a biennial event being held since 2003 where the eight member countries meet to set future action plans based on the past experiences on sanitation.

But inter-country sensitivities prevented the Pakistan minister to join the Dhaka summit. Pakistan will hold the next year’s meet.

The Indian minister, however, believes such conference should be held frequently.

“In this conference we exchange ideas, new technologies, and innovation. There are many things we learn from each other.

“This conference required a lot of repetitions, I should say, as far as eight countries are concerned.

Photo: nayan kumar

“There are many social, economic, and political problems, but to find out ways of solving social and economic problems this conference is very important,” he said.

Chaudhary, a senior politician, has been a Congress leader from Haryana for over 40 years. He quit from the Rajya Sabha in August 2014 and joined the ruling BJP. Three months later, he took oath as a Cabinet Minister.

His ministry came to global focus after Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared to end century-old open defecation practice in India by Oct 2, 2019, marking the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

When Modi announced the campaign, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan or clean India, on Oct 2 in 2014, nearly 60 percent of India’s 1.2 billion people did not have toilets.

This is being seen as a gigantic task by many, given the diversity of India’s demography, geography, and culture.

“But we have been successful so far in making it a public movement,” Chaudhary said. “We have achieved about 8.9 percent progress so far by some surveys.”

Photo: nayan kumar

He said this was a “big task”, but it became a “community campaign” soon after Prime Minister Modi gave the call to the nation.

Youngsters, mostly school students, are taking part in it as the “ambassador” of the campaign.

“In one week we made two lakh toilets that meant one million people were freed from open defecation (with average five persons using a toilet).

“(As many as) 38,000 villages have been declared open defecation-free,” he said, adding that they have to build nearly 90 million toilets by 2019.

And yet, he was confident that India would achieve the target ahead of schedule.

“Commitment and necessity” were the factors that made them confident about changing the century-old practices.

He said they were getting public support and “the youngsters and children are very keen to see this campaign succeed”.

According to him, the people felt it “necessary” with the changing population size and environment around their villages.

“When necessity is there, then behavioural change would take place easily,” Chaudhury observed.

Photo: nayan kumar

“But still a long way to go, I must admit,” he said, adding that they were giving all “flexibilities” to the state governments to achieve their open defecation-free target.

The government is also giving Rs 12,000 incentives to the poor people to build toilets.

But the minister lauded Bangladesh’s successes in controlling open defecation.

“Bangladesh is a progressive nation, we must admit. They (Bangladesh) are moving forward. One can learn from Bangladesh,” he said, as the open defecation rate in Bangladesh is one percent.

The minister, who used to play cricket in his university team in the 1960s, believes Bangladesh’s success in cricket was also related to its good sanitation.

“A country can be judged by its performance in sports. When you perform, it means you are a healthy nation, and that means you are clean nation,” he said.