If all it took to make Goa Open Defecation Free (ODF) was a signature on a piece of paper declaring that the State has achieved that status, it could have been done much earlier and Goa could have avoided the ignonomity of ranking last among States in this respect. Look at finally how this was achieved. Goa had less than 20 per cent coverage even a week ago. It distributed 538 temporary toilets to village panchayats with instructions that they be placed where required. Construction of permanent toilets will begin this month. But these too will be community toilets. What Goa had been planning was to install approximately 21,000 individual toilets and that is neither going to be met soon, nor can 532 temporary toilets – less than 3 per cent of the requirement – do the trick.
On paper Goa is ODF. On the ground this will have to be verified over the next few weeks. But even now it is clear that the State still has a long way to go, before every house has a toilet, as what has been provided are community toilets. Very clearly there are talukas that are still not ODF, as in Salcete, where community toilets have been provided to villages but none have been installed in houses, as was the requirement following the survey that was conducted by the government. It is the same everywhere. Even the community toilets that have been provided, are yet to be installed, so they are not yet being utilised.
According to the original plan devised for the State, the government had sought and received applications from individual households seeking installation of toilets – even accepted fees from the applicants – but has instead provided temporary toilets. This is creating a problem of another sort, perhaps not anticipated, as people are now not willing to allow the temporary toilets to be installed in their land as they had sought individual toilets in their houses. This does show an abject lack of planning on the part of the government and the team that was responsible for achieving the ODF status for the State.
In 2014, when the target date of October 2, 2019 was set to have India as ODF, Goa was ahead with 60.59 per cent of household toilets, way ahead of most other States. Achieving ODF status was akin to a competition, and should have been looked upon as a long distance race and the plan set with an achievable target date. Instead Goa ran into it much like the fable of the tortoise and the hare, where at the start Goa, like the hare, was so far ahead that it thought it could never lose, but fell back and slipped into the slumber mode only to lose to the other States that had planned their progress to the post and achieved it. Yes Goa fell back, and the temporary nature of the plan is hardly laudable.
It is not just individual toilets that the State needs now, but the lack of such facilities in Goa was felt even before the Swachh Bharat programme was announced by the Centre. For instance, there have long been complaints of inadequate toilet facilities at the fishing jetties where the migrant workers on fishing trawlers work. Similarly, most public places do not have sufficient washroom facilities. The existing conveniences need to be refurbished and even these have not been upgraded. Sad, as here was an opportunity for Goa to clean up the State. It missed the opportunity, and took the easy way out by making temporary arrangements. It had five years to plan for the ODF status, all it managed is a temporary measure that in the future will be converted into a permanent fixture.
