Top Priorities- Water And Sanitation

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of good hygiene through handwashing and access to clean water. Despite the progress over the past few decades, billions of people worldwide are still left behind.

Achieving universal, adequate, and equitable access to safely managed water and sanitation services is at the core of sustainable development.

These are categorized into tiers that parallel the categories of access to water. For sanitation, however, the percentage of people with access is lower than at the equivalent tiers for water.

Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services are critical in protecting us during infectious disease outbreaks. Washing hands was one of the key messages when the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) goals were set five years ago.

SDG-6, to “ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all” is critical now. This contributes significantly to economic development, poverty reduction, education, and, most important, at this point in time, health.

While rural India was declared open-defecation-free (ODF) on October 2, 2019, we now need to sustain the gains made under SBM to ensure that the health and hygiene benefits continue to be realised. It is critical that ODF behaviour is sustained, and every village/ward has access to solid and liquid waste management. Aligned to that, SBM Phase II both in rural and urban, brings challenges which are likely to be tougher.

SDG Target 6.1 requires achieving universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all by 2030. While this is a difficult target, the current pandemic may have encouraged governments to prioritise the supply of clean water. The government had demonstrated the willingness and vision to address water woes months ahead of the pandemic. Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi flagged the growing water crisis even as the country neared the target of achieving ODF status, and declared that around ~3.5 trillion would be spent under the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), aimed at providing potable water to all households by 2024