Environmental health refers to aspects of human health (including quality of life) that are determined by physical, chemical, biological, social and psychosocial factors in the environment.

Sanitation Initatives:

SDG 6 attained: Eleven years ahead of schedule and thanks to this mission, India has reached Sustainable Development Goal No. 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation) of the UN.

Building More Toilets: More than 11 crore toilets have been built since the “Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin” was introduced in 2014, and nearly 60 crore people have given up the habit of open defecation.

Phase II of the Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin, which seeks to create all 6 lakh villages in the nation ODF Plus, is now being carried out by the Indian government.

More than 1.16 lakh villages have declared themselves ODF Plus since the second phase of the “Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin” began, and the process of managing solid and liquid waste has also begun in around those 1.16 lakh villages. 3,000,000 villages.

Cleanliness and Drinking Water: The Indian government is aiming to ensure that every home has access to clean drinking water.

By 2024, every household must have access to reliable, high-quality drinking water, according to the “Jal Jeevan Mission.”

Only 3.23 crore rural families had access to tap water at the time of the Jal Jeevan Mission’s beginning in 2019, but that number has increased to roughly 10.27 crore during the last three years.

ODF++ and ODF+:

The objectives of ODF+ and ODF++ are the safe collection, transportation, treatment, and disposal of all faecal sludge and sewage. ODF++ concentrates on toilets with sludge, whereas ODF+ concentrates on toilets with water, maintenance, and hygiene.

Value of Sanitation:

Avoids Pandemic: During the Covid pandemic, everyone discovered that bathrooms, the practise of washing hands with soap and the availability of water from taps had served as a barrier against the pandemic.

Diseases on the decline: Access to tap water and the ODF have significantly reduced the incidence of recent water-borne illnesses.

India can achieve its goal of creating a nation that is healthy, clean, and self-sufficient with more consistent efforts.

Setting a Global Example: India needs to lead the world in terms of sanitation and water management.

Challenges:

Faecal sludge management in rural and small towns is on the verge of becoming a ticking time bomb as tanks and solitary pits fill up and become challenging to empty.

Scavenging by hand: Despite being prohibited, manual scavenging persists in a number of locations around the nation.

Contemporary Technologies: India will confront enormous hurdles in accomplishing this aim because it will take contemporary technology and enough of money to provide basic amenities to such a vast population.

Following the designation of a village, block, or district as an ODF, it is crucial to maintain that status. Once it is announced, the district administration is typically not under any pressure to take any action because the intended outcome has been reached. Additionally, a lot of individuals would likely resume the outdated practise of open defecation.

Public Involvement: The enormous task is to involve those who still lack access to toilets, stop partial toilet usage, and upgrade toilets that are not yet sustainably constructed.

Usage-related challenges include resolving issues with culture and mindset, providing water in remote regions, dealing with the issue of small, unkempt toilets, eradicating the stigma attached to pit-emptying, and forcing men to use toilets.

Open Water Bodies: The presence of open ponds (water pools) along traffic corridors in rural and semi-urban areas is an issue. People and animals use the ponds for a variety of purposes. Diseases develop in the ponds because of the poor quality of the water.

Waste Management: Appropriate excreta disposal facilities need to be built. People start using toilets, but the waste is not properly disposed of, harming the ecosystem.

Waste Conversion: Identifying and implementing waste conversion strategies that generate a profit will not only improve the communities’ hygienic conditions but also

Role of Trained Workforce:

For behavioural change of the society, a trained workforce is needed that can trigger communities.

This involves taking the community through a participatory process of self-analysis where people are informed about the ill effects of inadequate sanitation.

Reusing Water:

Recovery of precious grey water through minimal treatment and treatment of sewage will help tackle scarce water resources, encouraging reuse and conserving water bodies.

Partnerships at Village Level:

The corporates could team up with the village communities to convert their waste to wealth by utilising simple and cost-effective technologies that can be managed by them independently in the long run.

Building the capacity of the gram panchayats in understanding how to manage the various programmes.

Managing household and plastic waste as well as wastewater at a village level.

Establishing Interlinkages:

The government needs to focus on the thematic interlinkages between WASH and sectors such as health, education, gender, nutrition and livelihoods.