Puja Awasthi

Sharmila Joshi

Editor

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It takes 60 steps for Vitto Pandey to reach the toilet.
She cannot make that journey alone over uneven land. Sometimes, she waits for
hours for someone to hold her hand and walk with her. “I keep falling. I fall
and I get up. Once, I was hit by a bull and for weeks my body was swollen,” she
says.

Vitto, who is visually impaired since birth, is usually taken to
the toilet by her brother’s wife, Geeta. “Sometimes I am in the middle of other
work when she calls out. It is a problem,” says Geeta, who herself uses the
fields. “There is no running water in the toilet, so it gets very dirty. It is
a useless toilet,” she says.  Her husband
Sanatak is the youngest of Vitto’s three brothers. He farms on their one bigha (around 0.6 acres) land
in their village, Bakhari, in Lucknow
district’s Gosaiganj block. 

Many of the 203 toilets in Bakhari, of which most are
located far from the living quarters, are crumbling and in no shape to be used.
The lack of access to even a rudimentary toilet has meant prolonged stretches
of self-control, long walks, and frequent humiliation for the village residents.

Tarawati Sahu, a homemaker, remembers countless times
when she had an upset stomach, and defecated in front of someone’s house while
hurrying to the fields. “It is very
shameful. The neighbours give us dirty looks. When my stomach is upset and I
can’t control myself, I sometimes wash the streets where I defecate, five times
a day,” she says. At 65, the five-minute trek to the fields is a
difficult journey for her. Her 72-year-old husband Mata Prasad Sahu, who is too ill to work in their three bighas of farmland, faces similar
problems. “We have folded our hands before so many, but no one has paid attention
to us. I am tired of asking for a toilet,” she says.

And yet, Bakhari – a village of 190
households, around 25 kilometres from Lucknow city – is counted in
Uttar Pradesh’s claim of achieving 100 per cent coverage of household toilets under
the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM). Launched in October 2014 by the central
government’s Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, the Mission aims to achieve
total sanitation in the country. 

Bakhari’s tryst with toilets, however, began several
years before the SBM was launched. In 2009, when Mayawati was the state’s chief
minister, the village was chosen for the Dr. Ambedkar Gram Sabha Vikas Yojana
(AGSVY), a scheme of the Uttar Pradesh government, which included provision of
clean toilets. Five other mandatory objectives were to be achieved:
electrification, link roads, drains, drinking water and housing. The toilet used by Vitto was among the 170 built in Bakhari
under the scheme, for which the village was selected on the basis of 18
parameters – a sizeable population of Scheduled Castes being one of them.  Of Bakhari’s 917 residents, Census 2011 listed 381 who belonged to SC
communities. 

But Bakhari’s inclusion in the AGSVY scheme became its
undoing when the SBM, in its baseline survey in 2012, identified the households
eligible for toilets. Since the village was supposed to have received its share
of toilets under the AGSVY, it was left out of the SBM list. 

Ambar Singh, the elected pradhan of the Bakhari gram sabha,
says that he tried to get some funds from the SBM to repair the toilets built under
the AGSVY – including the crumbling Pandey household toilet. “But nothing can
be done after it is locked,” he says. By ‘locked’ Singh means the record in the
SBM’s database, which tracks the Mission’s progress. If the record says that
toilets have already been constructed in a village, no more funds can be
released for new ones.

Caught between the claims of two
schemes, Bindeshvari’s  family too has no
option but to use a rickety loo, with the bricks coming loose. “It seems as
though it will fall on me. I am getting old but am still working. This toilet
retired as soon as it was made,” remarks Bindeshvari, 57, who works as a domestic
worker in Lucknow. Everyone else in her family of eight in the village, including
her daughter and two daughters-in-law, go outdoors. But Bindeshvari is accustomed
to using a toilet with running water in the city, where she works during the
week and earns Rs. 6,000 a month.

In Bakhari though, the toilets have turned into an equaliser
for people of different castes and varying economic status. The quality of the toilet
built for Bindeshvari’s landless family from a Scheduled Caste, was the same as
that constructed for the household of Ram Chandra Pandey, a 62-year-old Brahmin
farmer. 

Although no one in the village recalls the cost of a
toilet built under the AGSVY scheme, many remember that 300 bricks were used for
each. Some who could afford it got toilets
built on their own.  

Ram Chandra, who has 2.8 acres of
land in the village, thought the quality of his toilet was so poor, that he spent
Rs. 4,000 of his own money to improve the structure. “There was a tin sheet for
the door. It blew away one night,” he recounts. The only person now using the
toilet in his household of seven is his seven-year-old granddaughter. “If
everyone in the family used it, it would have become completely useless many
years ago,” he adds.

Besides, the toilets in Bakhari are
not linked to a sewerage system, nor do they follow the guidelines set by the
Swachh Bharat Mission – because the SBM bypassed this village since it was
‘covered’ by the previous sanitation scheme. The one at Ram Chandra’s home, for
instance, is composed of a single pit, and not the twin-pit recommended by the
Mission. The second pit ensures uninterrupted use of the toilet after the first
one fills up, which takes between five to eight years. 

The SBM’s goals of ‘Equity and Inclusion’ are not met
in Bakhari either. The toilets built as part of the earlier scheme do not
include facilities – listed in the Handbook on
Accessible Household Sanitation for Persons with Disabilities – for
persons with disabilities, like Vitto.
The document, published by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, is
meant to serve as a reference for the countrywide SBM. It itemises conveniences
such as ramps, handrails, pathways, landmarks for blind people, and wide
entrances, among other features. 

But Vitto, who votes in every election with her
Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC), the only government-issued identification
she possesses, has never heard of these conveniences. “When it rains, the roof
of my toilet begins to leak. The pit fills up with water,” she says. When that
happens, she goes to the fields. And though she does not know how her family
can get a toilet that is easy to use and has water supply, she is sure that
having one is desirable. “Life will become a little easier,” she says. 

Amidst all this, almost no one in Bakhari knows what
the acronym ODF (Open Defecation Free, the SBM’s stated purpose) means.
Bindeshvari thinks hard for two minutes, and offers: “Perhaps ODF means No
Order for Village.”

'This toilet retired as soon as it was made'

‘কাজ শুরুর আগেই অবসর নিয়ে ফেলল এই শৌচালয়’

இந்த கழிவறைகள் கட்டப்பட்ட வேகத்தைவிட விரைவாக உடைந்துவிடும்

'આ શૌચાલય બનાવતા સાથે જ નિવૃત્ત થઈ ગયું'

‘यह शौचालय बनते ही ख़राब हो गया था’

’یہ بیت الخلا بنتے ہی خراب ہو گیا تھا‘

‘हा संडास बांधला त्या दिवशीच रिटायर झाला’

‘କାର୍ଯ୍ୟକ୍ଷମ ହେବା ପରେପରେ ଏହି ଶୌଚାଳୟ ଅକାମୀ ହୋଇଗଲା’

Bakhari

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'This toilet retired as soon as it was made'

Bakhari village in Lucknow district is counted in UP's claims of being 100 per cent 'open-defecation-free' under the Swachh Bharat Mission, though the village only has old, broken and unusable toilets

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