Municipal Corporation Of Gwalior (MCG), United Nations Human Settlement Program (UN-HABITAT) and the Government of Madhya Pradesh (GoMP), on a tripartite partnership model, have initiated SESI on a pilot basis, targeting 5,000 families - to demonstrate that communities can be empowered to acquire water and sanitation facilities to meet their needs. The SESI aims to sensitize the community about sanitation issues and 'Open Defecation Free Slums' by constructing low cost individual household latrines and community managed sanitation complexes.

Laxmanpura, one of the slums in city, is being selected for the implementation of SESI. According to the finding of the Poverty Pockets Situation Analysis (PPSA), the status of sanitation facilities and hygiene conditions were very poor, with most of the people using railway tracks for defecation, which sometimes result in serious accidents.

• 44% families do have toilet facility
• No availability of drinking water and toilet in government primary school
• No arrangements for disposal of wastewater
• Unhygienic maintenance of community toilets

A number of activities have been taken up for the effective implementation of SESI, like women's Self-Help Groups (SHGs) being formed (each group having about 15 members), a Sanitation Fund constituted to provide loan for construction and maintenance of toilets and water facilities, capacity building programmes and education campaigns, and exposure visits to create/enhance awareness about sanitation and hygiene and its impact on the health.

Nirmal Samittee, a Community Based Organisation (CBO), has been formed to persuade community members about the benefits of household toilets. For rest of the households, that do not have enough space to construct individual toilets, construction of community toilets has been proposed. It was decided that the existing defunct community toilet would be demolished, and a new community toilet would be constructed on the same place. Nirmal Samittee took the responsibility of maintenance of the toilet along with the supervision and inspection of construction work.
The efforts of the MCG, Nirmal Samittee and NGO have resulted in the construction of 83 individual toilets with one community toilet, which has incinerator facility, and is disabled-friendly and children-friendly.

Laxmanpura slum has been declared as an 'Open Defecation Free Slum'. The initiative provided a comfortable and easily accessible sanitation facility to women and children, as well as to the disabled and aged members of the community. As one of the consequence of the initiative, the city administration gained confidence in community-managed asset creation.
A CBO has been made responsible for the smooth functioning and proper operation and maintenance (O&M) of the community toilet along with the responsibility of the collection of user charges. At present, community toilet has a membership of 90 people, with user charges of Rs. 10 per month. The effective monitoring of the community toilet and the user fee concept sustain the project in long run.

This was one of the slums identified for implementation of SESI. The same model has been replicated in other slums of the city as well as in the slums of Indore and Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh.

For further details, contact:

Mr. Hari Ranjan Rao, IAS
Project Manager
Project UDAY, (U. W. S. E. I. P.)