'Model' Gujarat's 46% rural households don't have drainage, worse than UP, Bihar: GoI

By A Representative
“Model” Gujarat’s rural areas continue to suffer from a major lag in the drainage system, if the latest Government of India (GoI) report, “Drinking Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Housing Condition”, a survey carried out between July and December 2018 across the country, is any indication.
The survey report, which was released last week, says that as against the national average of 38.9% rural households having no drainage system, Gujarat’s 45.5% rural households do not have any drainage facility.
Published by the National Statistical Organization (NSO), there are only five major states, where a higher percent of rural households has no drainable facility – these are Odisha (82%), West Bengal (69.6%), Jharkhand (56.9%), Assam (53.4%), and Tamil Nadu (52.6%).
Several of the so-called Bimaru states are better performers than Gujarat. Thus, in Rajasthan 44.6% households have no drainage, followed by Madhya Pradesh (41.6%), Chhattisgarh (41.1%), Bihar (36.4%), and Uttar Pradesh (19.4%).
Interestingly, the survey also shows that, in Gujarat, the wastewater disposal into the drainage system takes place from 32.9 rural households, while in a whopping 45.5% of cases wastewater disposal takes place without treatment and in the open, low lying areas and streets, and in 5.1% of cases it is allowed to go to nearby rivers or nallas.
As for the country as a whole, 48.1% of the households in the rural areas disposed of household waste water without treatment to open low land areas/streets while in 9.3% cases, it goes into rivers or nallas.
Interestingly, the figure of a whopping 45.5% households lacking drainage system comes against the backdrop of the report claiming that Gujarat’s only 0.5% rural households are such were no water is available in or around the latrines.

Can free‑living Indian street dogs teach us about how to care for pet dogs?

By Daniel Ramp, Kapil Vishwas Patwardhan, Rosalie Chapple We give our pet dogs shelter, veterinary care, affection, training and play. We decide when they eat, where they sleep, when they go outside, who they meet, and how they move through the world.

A path of self-reliance in place of migration: Saplings, nutrition gardens and perseverance

By Vikas Meshram* In the tribal belt stretching from Banswara to Dahod, the day often begins with a glance at the sky. The fields are small, the land uneven and sloping, and irrigation mostly means whatever the rain chooses to give. Yet in the villages of this region, a different story has been unfolding over the past few years. Sitting in meetings of Vaagdhara’s Gram Swaraj groups, farmers have begun to treat water, forest, land, livestock and seed as their real capital.

100,000 dead, 4 million displaced: Myanmar's post-coup war grinds on as the junta loses ground

By Nava Thakuria* At least 100,000 people, including civilians, have been killed in Myanmar's conflicts since the military coup of 1 February 2021, according to the UN. Kelley Anne Eckels-Currie, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, gave the figure to the UN General Assembly in New York on 27 October 2026. She called President Min Aung Hlaing a tyrant who still deliberately attacks civilians to force them into submission.

Counterview

Search This Blog