Sanitation Red Alerts

Published on February 19, 2013 09:19 by Syeda Aniqa Gul, worked in Non Govt organization - Coordinating officer (Hygiene Promotion & office administration)

Sanitation Red alerts south Asia

Overview

South Asia is a region of multicultural values and customs people of different ethics, religions, traditions and languages live here in spite of all these dissimilarities they have one thing common that is poverty Poor infrastructure, lack of human development, diseases and insufficient water reseviors and poor sanitation facilities has disturbed their whole life cycle.

Identify Sanitation Red alerts

Almost half of the population of the region does not have access to improved sanitation facilities. More than 700 million people (44% of the population) defecate open every day in the whole region.

Major sanitation red alerts.

Major problems in rural areas

1) Inaccessible water resources

The available water in the rural areas is not only unhygienic but also not easily accessible. The animals and local people use the same water specially water of springs and ponds. Where there wells are available the situation is also not so much encouraging and appreciable. The opened mouth wells are not safe as the plastic (polythene bags), rats and other small animals usually fall in to the wells.

2) Ignorance regarding usage of water

On one hand the water is impure (Under ground water is pure but the methodology of its use by local people makes it impure) and on other hand the fetching of water from the deep wells is responsibility of rural women, children especially female children. The collecting and carrying of fuel wood is also an additional work load for local women. These activities, even, do not stop during the pregnancy of women. Local people also wash their clothes near the wells and the bucket which is used for fetching water caries filth into the wells.

Sanitation problems in Urban areas.

As there is an increase trend of shifting people to the urban areas. These areas are becoming densely populated which has created various environmental problems. The most common is in avalability of clean water. The major reasons behind it are

1) Designing toilet structures without considering cultural factors

Designing public toilets without considering the requirements of local community e.g designing toilets seats instead of designing Indian toilets .People are not familiar with the new structures they avoid using them as they consider it shameful to sit on toilet seat.Govt spend millions in designing new structures without taking into consideration local factors. Another problem is these structures are mostly weak and easily broken by frequent usage.

2) Scarce Medical facilities

Diahorea, cholera, kidney infections, malaria, intestine infections and many other water born diseases are very common in the area. Due to the scarcity of medical facilities, Blood screening, treatment, uneasy access to the headquarter Hospitals, unawareness and traditional methods of treatments cause serious problems and also increase mortality rate.

3) Poor drainage system

Repair and maintenance of drainage structure pipes are not given any importance by the local Govt.Once designed they are not rechecked as a result drinking water line and sewerage lines get mixed which ultimately makes drinking water impure and unhygienic.