The inadequate availability of drinking water and proper sanitation, especially in rural India, leads to innumerable deadly diseases, harms the environment, and also affects vulnerable populations, such as persons with disabilities and women, exposing them to sexual violence. Providing access to sanitation facilities in rural areas of India has been on the agenda of the Government of India for the past three decades. However, a reinvigorated thrust to provide adequate sanitation facilities in rural India is the need of the hour, which must be accompanied by constant scrutiny and monitoring, so as to arrive at apt decisions and policies for further action.
Arjun Kumar (arjun40_ssf@jnu.ac.in) is a research affiliate with the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, New Delhi.
The author would like to acknowledge Sukhadeo Thorat, Amitabh Kundu, Ajaya Kumar Naik and Nitin Tagade for their helpful comments.
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