Making Sense on Sanitation: the Case of Uttar Pradesh and Bangladesh

The issue of age old practice of open defecation and the provision of safe sanitary facilities to the people at the same time, has been one of the most difficult challenges before the Indian policy makers. The author investigates the rural sanitation campaign in Uttar Pradesh, a state in India, drawing on possible policy lessons from Bangladesh to use the techniques of Information, Education and Communication as a tool for mass mobilization for ensuring active community participation in the Clean India Campaign(Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan)to go for a sustained demand generation for toilets, its community ownership and finally bringing about lasting sanitary behavioral changes through inter-personal and inter-community communication. The author after deep investigations in the backward areas of Uttar Pradesh, having largely socio-economically vulnerable population, suggests certain grass root level policy interventions in order to meet out the ambitious sanitation targets under the Millennium Development Goals as set by the United Nations. The findings hold immense relevance in the wake of the resolve taken by the new Government in India to go for a clean India by the year 2019.