11/21/2014 Changing mindsets, the Churu way - Print View - Livemint Print Close Wed, Nov 19 2014. 12 28 AM IST Changing mindsets, the Churu way If Churu in Rajasthan keeps up the same pace, it could well be the first district free of open defecation in north India Churu/Mewat/New Delhi: One day last year, a board placed outside the district collector’s office in Churu, Rajasthan, vanished, sending then collector Rohit Gupta into a tizzy. It was discovered that the board was removed in the course of some construction work, but Gupta would have none of it—he wanted it back immediately, recalls Sarla Jangir, district coordinator of the School Water Sanitation and Hygiene Education Cell, Churu. The board, which is still there, lists all villages in the district by blocks (an administrative unit comprising a few villages), and shows a coloured dot next to the name of the village. There are green dots, yellow dots and red dots. The dots have to do with a term which has become central to the Lunas village in Taranagar block proclaims to be completely vocabulary of local-level administrative officials, especially after free of open defecation. Every house in the village proudly Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a cleanliness drive that bears the legend ‘chokho ghar’ or beautiful home. Photo: entails building 111 million toilets across India by 2019, roughly one Ramesh Pathania/Mint every second. The term is ODF, which stands for Open Defecation Free, and its existence and importance highlight a shameful fact—India has the largest number of people, 597 million, according to the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund, that defecate in the open. People in 67% of households in rural India practise open defecation according to the 2011 Census. In urban areas, those in 13% of the households do so. Open defecation fosters poor hygiene, is unsafe (apart from being undignified) for women, poses health challenges, and also results in loss of productivity. On the board in Churu, a green dot meant there was no open defecation (or 100% ODF), a yellow dot meant a village was on its way to getting to green, and a red dot meant a village plagued by open defecation. “He (Rohit Gupta) was worried that if a sarpanch dropped in, he would not be able to see how his village was ranked,” says Jangir. The board served a dual purpose of being an incentive as well as naming and shaming. Gupta would apparently open his conversations with visiting sarpanchs by asking them what the ranking of their village on the board was. “That board really motivated people. It played a huge role in villages adopting toilet usage,” says Gupta who is now the district collector of Pali. There’s history to the dots (and the board). In 2010, the ministry of urban development released a ranking of class I Indian cities on sanitation parameters. The rankings were based on points with the maximum being 100. Cities with 90 points and more were to be ranked green, while cities with points between 67 and 90 were ranked blue. No city was ranked green though four were ranked blue. Last on the list of the 423 cities ranked was Churu, an alarming red with 16.750 points. In government speak, the red denoted “on the brink of public health and environmental emergency”. Now, four years later, Churu is a case study of how to turn things around, at least as far as preventing people doing it in the open goes. One of the blocks, Taranagar—it has a green dot next to it on the board—is completely free of open defecation, a huge achievement for a block in Rajasthan, even north India. If Churu keeps up the same pace—to be sure, there are some challenges, as readers will discover further down—it could well be the first district free of open defecation in north India. http://www.livemint.com/Politics/zIGD3OxaYydZA8Z8x6OFEN/Changing-mindsets-the-Churu-way.html?facet=print 1/3 11/21/2014 Changing mindsets, the Churu way - Print View - Livemint Yet, addressing the issue of open defecation doesn’t stop with building toilets. It requires a change in behaviour, even beliefs. “Open air defecation is not an access issue at all. There is a revealed preference for it as people believe it to be healthy,” says Sangita Vyas of the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics (RICE). According to a survey conducted by the organization, people in 40% of the households in Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar that either had a toilet or access to one still preferred to do it in the open. So, how did Churu (and Gupta) turn things around? The ministry’s ranking hurt Gupta. “I felt it was really shameful, women and children going out—this is directly linked to the high incidence of diseases and infant mortality in India. And it was obvious early on that it was not an issue of resources, but rather mindsets,” he says. Gupta understood early on that he had to involve people in his process. The result was a campaign, Chokho Churu or Beautiful Churu. At the first meeting of the collector, sanitation workers, local administrative officers and village headmen, Gupta and his team sought to understand the reasons for open defecation. The second meeting involved local health workers and school teachers. “First we educated them about the government’s sanitation programme, Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan and then the benefits of using toilets,” says S.L. Sharma, ODF coordinator of Churu. The meetings continued every week, till almost everyone involved was covered. “The approach was tailored for each group,” adds Sharma. Rather than the government or an outside agency building toilets, Gupta insisted that people be encouraged to do so themselves, thus cultivating a sense of ownership. District resource groups were charged with spending at least 48 hours in a village imparting sanitation training. This involved explaining through the use of models how germs from faeces are transferred via flies, water, even milk. Watch committees were created in order to ensure toilet usage. If the Taranagar block is any indication, the programme has been a huge success. A signboard on the road leading to Lunas village in Taranagar block proudly proclaims it to be completely free of open defecation. Every house in the village proudly bears the legend, chokho ghar (beautiful home). Villagers were initially reluctant to build toilets for themselves, but the village headperson Krishna Devi generously funded toilets for several households. “Earlier, I would defecate outside, but for the past two years there has been a lot of talk in the village about the benefits of toilet usage and now no one does so,” says Sajna Lalchand, 50, standing next to the toilets constructed in the courtyard of her home and admits to regular usage since they were constructed. Lunas was awarded a Nirmal Gram Puraskar by the government a few years ago for making sure all its houses had a toilet or at least, access to one. The programme’s success in Taranagar can be attributed to awareness, public shaming and social pressure, says Gyan Singh, a teacher in the village of Dhani Kumarhan, and one of the toilet evangelists for the village. “In the initial stages of the campaign, there were still people going out and I would stop them and ask why they were not using toilets. But today I can say proudly that I don’t encounter anyone,” he adds. “Who wants to go out now that we have this?” asks Guddi Devi. “There have been quite a few success stories in different parts of the country where the administration and community have come together to make a change. Cultural attitudes change from state to state and some blocks have come up with strategies unique to them. For instance, an all-woman gram panchayat came up with a unique way of combating open defecation. They put up pictures of those who were still going out and that served as a powerful motivator,” says Avani Kapur, an analyst with the Centre for Policy Research (CPR). A report by the ministry of drinking water and sanitation has identified several key factors for the success of the Chokho Churu campaign. It praises the proactive leadership of the district collector and other local officials while identifying certain factors like “the campaign design… which addressed all critical components such as institutional arrangement, communication…capacity building, phasing, financing, and http://www.livemint.com/Politics/zIGD3OxaYydZA8Z8x6OFEN/Changing-mindsets-the-Churu-way.html?facet=print 2/3 11/21/2014 Changing mindsets, the Churu way - Print View - Livemint monitoring”. The transfer of Gupta in May this year was a jolt to all those involved with the programme in Churu. On record, government officials say the work is on track and the district will soon be completely free of open defecation, but privately they admit there are concerns. “There are still more blocks to cover and this requires keen interest at every link of the chain. A large part of the motivation for people came from the personal involvement of the collector,” says an official of the Churu administration who asked not to be identified. One of the three blocks is Rajgarh and the challenge it poses highlights the blocks campaigns such as the one in Churu run into. Dadrewa village in the block is the worst when it comes to open defecation, says Jangir. Few houses in the village of at least 300 households have toilets. Nisha Walia, whose husband runs a tea stall, points out that the `9,100 the government gives poor households for building a toilet isn’t adequate, although Gupta points out that this is only an incentive and was never designed to meet the cost of construction.