The answer to many scavengers' prayers came with the Sulabh Sanitation Movement - inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, who was the first to bring attention to the scavengers' plight. Sulabh International's founder, Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, joined with the Gandhian Movement for the Liberation of Scavengers and began his untiring mission of restoring human dignity to millions of untouchables. Born in 1943 and educated at Patna University, Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak Founder, Sulabh Sanitation Movement has spent a lifetime restoring dignity and sanitation to millions of Indians. "Nobody should go outside for defecation and every house in India should have a toilet" has been the passionate obsession of Dr. Pathak.
India's largest NGO, Sulabh International employing 55,000 people provides communities with clean toilets and washing facilities and has removed the demand for night soil porters. Not just that, it also provides the night soil porters training and new skill sets, which would help them find alternative employment.
This low cost on-site sanitation system has been central to the success of the Sulabh public toilet complexes where toilets, showers and clothes-washing facilities are provided. While men must pay, women and children go free. Toilets in slum areas cost very little, whereas those in railway stations, bus stands and markets cost more. The Sulabh toilets provide more dignified employment for many scavengers.
The official website of Sulabh International describes the success of the Sulabh movement in the following words.
"In 1970, Dr. Pathak came up with his simple design of Sulabh Sauchalaya (latrines-pour-flush toilet with twin leach pit). The latrine consists of a squatting plate or a pan with a steep bottom and side slopes and a gas-trap with a 20 mm water-seal. The water-seal checks the escape of foul gases and microbes into the atmosphere from the leach pits. About 1.5 to 2 litres of water are sufficient to flush the excreta into the leach pits through pipes or covered drains. One pit is used at a time and airtight covers cover both pits. The gases disperse and the liquid infiltrates into the soil through holes in the pit lining. When one pit is full, excreta are directed to the second pit. In about 18 months, the contents of the filled up pit get digested into manure and are safe for handling. Now, the pit is emptied and can be used again after the second pit is full. Thus, the two pits are used alternatively and continuously."
What are the high points of Sulabh Shauchalaya?
- They are hygienically and technologically appropriate, low cost and easy to construct with locally available materials.
- The design and specifications can be modified to suit the needs and the paying capacity of the users.
- The dispose of human waste does not pollute surface or ground water, if proper precautions are taken in construction; their maintenance is simple and does not require the services of a scavenger or large volumes of water.
- Fertilizer is made available; there is high potential for upgradation as it can even be connected to sewers when sewerage is introduced in the area; a low-volume flushing cistern can also be attached and the whole set-up needs very little space.
Till now Sulabh International has made a remarkable contribution to the society by making 240 towns across the country scavenging free. Over one million Sulabh Shauchalayas have been built all over the country which has consequently freed 60,000 scavengers from the demeaning practice of manual handling of human waste. All this made possible by the unstinting effort of one man- Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak. May his tribe grow.
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