By Business India Editorial

Kolhapur in Maharashtra has a population of approximately 6 lakh, of which 10 per cent live in slums. Most residents living here have limited access to sanitation services or infrastructure. Community toilets have a toilet seat to individual ratio of 1:20. They lack running water and electricity, long queues pose health and safety risks for women. The H T Parekh Foundation, HDFC Ltd’s philanthropic arm, saw Kolhapur as an ideal Tier II city to undertake innovative sanitation initiatives. 

The Foundation has been working in Kolhapur since 2016, with the aim of creating a model sanitation city through a multi-stakeholder collaborative approach involving civil society, slum communities and the Kolhapur Municipal Corporation (KMC). To achieve this goal, their interventions were grouped into three focus areas.

End open defecation: The Foundation partnered with Shelter Associates (Shelter) – a Pune-based non-profit, working to improve the living conditions of the urban poor in the areas of sanitation and housing since 1994. During the first year of support, a citywide slum mapping was undertaken using GIS technology to collect, organise and publish data gathered through surveys and mapping. Through this exercise, Shelter was able to identify areas that lacked drain connectivity and areas to improve drain network connectivity. 

This data-driven insight was shared at the outset with KMC and was key in facilitating the construction of 3,400+ individual household toilets, across 29 slums in Kolhapur between 2016-2020.Through Shelter’s ‘One Home One Toilet’ Initiative, the Foundation specifically focused on individual household toilets for families with senior citizens, persons with disabilities and adolescent girls, with the aim to provide sanitation solutions that are safe, hygienic and to afford dignity.

Advocacy and behaviour change: Shelter’s strong government and community relations were key to sustaining this initiative and taking it to scale. Through a series of awareness and behaviour change activities conducted with community members, Shelter was able to positively influence and change behaviour of families on safe sanitation practices, as well as increase the demand for individual toilets.

The Foundation’s follow-on strategy after providing access, focused on management and treatment of sanitation waste through faecal sludge and septage management (FSSM) solutions. For a majority of slums in Kolhapur, on-site sanitation options (septic tanks) were a viable solution for toilets not connected to drainage systems.

The Foundation partnered with the Centre for Water & Sanitation (CWAS) at CEPT University, a think-tank with the expertise in urban planning and operationalising interventions at the local and policy levels. CWAS conducted a citywide sanitation assessment in areas that relied on septic tanks and an FSSM plan was developed in consultation with KMC. 

Major challenge

A pilot zone consisting of 10,000 households connected to septic tanks was selected to implement scheduled desludging of septic tanks and ensure proper treatment of septage. Additionally, the Foundation supported the procurement of two 3000L capacity trucks with the capacity to desludge 8-10 septic tanks per day. To scale and sustain this initiative, CWAS partnered with the local government for manpower and desludging operations for ownership and sustainability.