[box type=”shadow” ]
What are the factors that ensure sustainability in all of Vedanta’s sanitation initiatives and projects?
To ensure the sustainability of a project, and to overcome the biggest challenge of inculcating a sense of ownership, our programmes have ensured that the owners of individual household toilets are involved either through monetary contribution or in the actual construction of the project. The structures are constructed with a durability of about five years, and through our awareness campaigns, we are educating the community on how diseases are prevented through hygienic practices.
At the global level we have introduced the WASH pledge. We joined other industry leaders in signing the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBSCD) pledge for access to safe Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in the workplace.
In the urban context, these facilities are available but since the assets we operate in are in remote areas, we have to be much particular about providing safe water and sanitation first to our employees and then it percolates down to the community. It is then we devise CSR projects to take care of the community health and provide them with clean drinking water and good sanitation facility.
In order to provide the facilities, we make partners, either international or local, to build the infrastructure. Across India, we have positively impacted over 1,300 school toilets in FY 2015, and constructed about 15,000 household toilets in about the last three years. These projects are in various stages of implementation. As they are in a PPP model and a token amount spent by the beneficiary, there is ownership.
Apart from the areas where Vedanta’s operations exist, what other kinds of initiatives have been undertaken that contribute to sustainable sanitation?
At Hindustan Zinc Limited in Rajasthan on October 2 last year, we undertook community development programmes in about 200 villages. When we commenced, about 60% of village population were not aware of the importance of hygienic sanitation facilities. The villagers who lived in brick & mortar houses too did not have household toilets. The area faced wide spread diseases; women were affected the most.
The Sanitation campaign aimed at eradicating the practice of open defecation. We set out constructing 30,000 individual toilets for Below Poverty Line families under the ‘Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan’ campaign.
Based on a tripartite agreement with Hindustan Zinc, Rajasthan Government and the NGO, Financial Inclusion Improves Sanitation and Health (FINISH) Society as the implementation partner, we have so far constructed 10,000 individual household toilets in Bhilwara, Chittorgarh and Udaipur districts of Rajasthan. This initiative will make 80 rural and tribal villages in Rajasthan ‘Open Defecation Free’.
Under the ‘Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan’, cost of construction of each toilet is `8,500 where `4,600 per toilet is being paid by government, `3000 by Hindustan Zinc and `900 by the beneficiary. Here again to inculcate a sense of ownership, the villager can make a non-monetary contribution by individually digging the pit or contribute manpower to the construction.
We also educate the communities on the concept importance and usage of proper sanitation facilities through different methods. There are many more environment and safety benefits besides hygiene and sanitation.
Due to minimized risk of contamination of drinking water sources, there is a marked improvement in the health of the villagers, leading to increased manpower productivity.
Once the villages are 100% open defecation free, they will be recognized as “Nirmal Grams”. Hindustan Zinc will declare it by blowing a balloon. Hindustan Zinc ensures sustaining the quality of the construction, and plays the role of the catalyst, eventually they will phase out their involvement while warranting community ownership.
Cairn India Limited’s Initiatives
Cairn India gained support from the villagers and the local leaders in catering to the local requests which asked for support in construction of household toilets. Since 2013, Cairn India supported construction of one toilet and one bathroom at an individual household level for three Gram Panchayats – Beriwala Tala, Bhadka and Mundo Ki Dhani – in 31 villages.
A survey conducted in the region, it came to fore that women required bathrooms as much as toilets. Cairn India realized the absence of individual household bathrooms besides toilets in the rural areas of Barmer in Rajasthan as a critical problem.
[box type=”shadow” ]“It is important to empower the community and give it the due respect. All that an individual requires is ‘selfrespect’. We believe in being an enabler and a facilitator and not a provider of that self-respect. ”[/box]Cairn India’s contributed `8,000 per household while the remaining `10,000 was sourced from government schemes and institutions. Around 2,500 toilets with attached bathrooms have been built out of 4,500 households in these three panchayats.
The current survey shows high satisfaction rates for the programme to the tune of 80% in third party evaluation exercises.
Cairn India project included construction of school toilets in keeping with the Rajasthan government mandate on toilet design’s key features. However, there is an addition of replacing the soak/leach pit by installation of a bio-digester which contains a bacterial consortium in a unit that degrades night soil at a range of temperatures and produces colourless, odourless and inflammable bio gas.
This leads to less water consumption and less manual waste handling. The smell of night soil, the disease causing organisms in the night soil and the solid matter are eliminated totally. On dry weight basis 90% of the solid waste is reduced.
Since the bio-digester technology does not require water for flushing, less water is consumed further saving environment. The E-Coli bacteria which thrives on human excreta leads to total decomposition of human waste and ensures the surrounding environment’s cleanliness and removes the chances of ground water contamination. The bio-digester toilets are nearly maintenance free.
The local panchayat was engaged in the development programs for the construction of the household toiles and bathrooms and for community mobilization. The program through its design, created meaningful employment under the ‘Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005’ (MNREGA) and led to improved sanitation facilities, with creating ownership among locals.
Under Cairn India’s “Jeevan Amrit Project”, kiosks with reverse osmosis (RO) plants have been installed to provide safe drinking water in villages like Bhakharpur, Kawas, Guda, Jogasar, Aakdada and Baytu to benefit 22,000 people. To get drinking water is difficult and it is very saline too.
Cairn India has also under the SBA taken up construction of 20,000 household toilets in the Baitu block of Barmer and 150 school toilets to support the Swachh Bharat Swachh Vidyalaya campaign. With this 10gram panchayats will qualify for the status of “O
pen defecation free panchayats” besides direct and indirect employment will be generated.
Any particular challenge faced in implementation?
In the Lanjigarh business unit of Vedanta open defecation was a bigger concern besides health issues of diarrhoea, malaria, sickle cell anaemia, nutritional anaemia, malnutrition, high birth order, and high maternal and infant mortality. In 2013, we noticed that the sense of sanitation is lacking in peripheral villages of the operations. Only 12% of the families had household toilet and yet open defecation was prevalent due to lack of education. In 2014, we signed an MOU with District Water & Sanitation Mission (DWSM), Kalahandi, under Rural Development Department, Government of Odisha.
We motivated communities and Panchayat Raj Institutions to promote sustainable sanitation facilities through awareness creation and health education.
The programme involves 40 villages of four gram panchayats – Lanjigarh, Chhatrapur, Baterlima and Champadiepur – covering around 4,000 households. The cost of per unit came to about Rs.12,000 and it was modelled in such a way that the cost of toilets for villagers who had no toilet and had no financial obligations with DWSM would be borne by DWSM and the cost of repairing damaged and defunt toilets built with DWSM would be borne by Vedanta Lanjigarh unit.
Thus, the strategy of implementation of the project is in bringing about behavior change, educating and encouraging the villagers in toilet construction and its use.
After completion of construction in 40 villages, the project can be extended to other villages of Lanjigarh Block.
In south too Vedanta recently started work on a sustainable sanitation programme?
Another similar project Sterlite Copper has initiated in Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu. These household toilets are basically for families who are below poverty line and we address the need of the community. We have done about 200 toilets in two villages Milavittan and Therrkuveerapandiapuram along with Sulabh International. We also went another step beyond sanitation by engaging in educating the people on health issues and diseases, bad sanitation surrounding and water logging.
Recently, Vedanta has connected with the Anganwadi project of the HRD Ministry
One of the most significant projects that we have undertaken with the HRD Ministry is refurbishing / re-creating or building 4,000 anganwadis. Some of the locations identified have not even seen an anganwadi. We are getting into such interlines where we are also providing two toilets wherever possible, solar energy, waste management and safe drinking water. We have created a pre-fabricated structure model in Sonipat near Delhi. This model will be replicated to rebuild structures that are damaged.
Does CSR end with the construction of toilets? Is maintaining it also a part of CSR?
Maintaining what is built is a part of CSR but who takes on that accountability is important. It has to reside either at the local government level or at the individual level. Corporates can provide the facility up to a point but to maintain the facility, it is always the community’s responsibility compared to us. We are creating the social infrastructure and handing it over. There is no way a corporate can take on that responsibility. We also feel there is a social obligation and to that extent we indirectly take stock by monitoring the maintenance of structure through a constant dialogue with the local body. The responsible NGOs too have to report back. All said, it is a property constructed by Vedanta and we would monitor it ensure the property is being maintained.
In every project, we hand-hold the community to an extent and then make them self-reliant. We put in place a mechanism to make it selfsustained. We want an empowered society which is possible only when they are made self-reliant and make them proud of their own well-being and give them that status. If this is not done, then your CSR is not heading in the right direction.