Vol. 4, Issue 1, Part A (2022)

The most important and basic question of modernisation and developmental discourse is providing environmentally safe sanitation to the people by the state and civil society. The challenges that Indian urban sanitation sector is facing is primarily related to the low priority accorded to it by the municipal governments. This task becomes more intricate in context of the countries like India where introduction of new paradigms of plans, policies or projects can challenge people’s tradition and belief. Moreover, efforts which come in shape of campaigns do not establish its links with development and social change. Various studies suggest that the open defecation is still prevalent in urban areas. Widespread open defecation has major consequences for health and human capital in India. Inadequate sanitation has a great environmental economic and health impacts in India. In order to minimize these impacts, Government of India has undertaken several measures like ‘Swaccha Bharat Abhiyaan’ and ‘AMRUT’ mission, increasing investment in urban sanitation apart from public campaigns to improve sanitary conditions in the country. Against this backdrop, present paper aims at critically examining the issues of sanitation from policy perspective and relating some contemporary Sociological discourses related to the stigmas of lower castes in India. It also tries to articulate the role of various civil society organisations in addressing the issues on the basis of secondary data.