Kofi Annen rightly quoted “We shall not defeat any of the infectious diseases that plague the developing world until we have won the battle of sanitation”.
Sanitation refers to adequate availability, accessibility and affordability of clean drinking water and sewage disposal. Sanitation altogether has a lot of references. It could mean to provide public better conditions to live in or could also deal with matters of serious concerns such as sewage disposal. But the summarized and best suited meaning of this 10 letter word is to make the environment clean so as to protect the health of people.
It is shocking and bitter though it is the truth that only 39% of the world’s population has an access to safe and managed sanitary services. Adding on to this fact the bitter truth of today’s so called developed and modern world is that around 842000 people in the middle and low economic countries die just because of inadequate water supply and non availability of proper sanitation .If we narrow down our stats and limit our concern till India, we will find that with 732 Million, India tops list on number of people without access to toilets. And this actuality is capable enough of making us realize that how far away India is from actually achieving its status of “developed country”.
It is high time now that india should thing about providing the society with better sanitation facilities and must implement the plans in a proper way. Times are changing and many plans have already been implemented for the better sanitation such as swachh bharat abhiyaan. Many films have also been made which highlight this social evil of poor hygiene and sanitation such as toilet ek prem katha. People are always inspired by their ideals and try to copy them; owing to this law of humans many big filmstars such as Amitabh bachan and Akshay Kumar are spreading the message of cleanliness to everyone. Few ways which I would like to suggest sorting this problem out are:
I as a student have been a part of campaigns related to cleanliness, but I didn’t find it so fruitful, so as to my views instead of campaigning government should make a club and allot few peoples from every district to spread awareness in their respective districts by performing various nukkad nataks as people can relate themselves to the plays and can learn more about sanity. This will also provide a lot of people jobs and will facilitate the skill india abhiyan.
Secondly government should make various graphittis on the walls of highways and flyovers as they are a major source and are an easy way to convey message to people.
Thirdly, the government dedicates a week from the year to sanitation, which would be called the National Sanitation week under which oath ceremonies, competitions, quizzes and debates should be organized so that the young children of our nation know well about sanitation.
Fourthly, government should put up hoardings on the road spreading the message of sanitation.
Fifthly, government should improve the conditions of the public toilets and should ensure a proper water sewage disposal.Everything can’t be done by the government, we as citizens have the responsibility to make our nation and world a better place to live in so
Sixthly, we must preach the principle of each one teach one. Those who are educated must spread awareness in their surroundings.
And lastly we should be an active participant in all the campaigns and projects launched by government so that we can fulfill our duty as a citizen.
To end it up I would like to sum up,Let us transform good sanitation from a luxury to a basic necessity.
Author Bio : Anika Singh, A ‘X’ Grade student of Ahlcon international School, Delhi. A participant of International Essay Competition, November.
