‘To ensure effective implementation of policies addressing water, sanitation and hygiene needs, the identification of beneficiary segments is to be synchronized with the anticipated outcomes’. Examine the statement in the context of the WASH scheme. (UPSC IAS Mains 2017 General Studies Paper – 2)
- India is one of the developing countries that has come out with WASH schemes to address the challenges of health and sanitation in urban and rural areas. Swachh Bharat Abhiyan for urban and rural areas is one of the manifestation of the importance of WASH schemes.
- There has been huge disparities in access to WASH services across different segments of the population. In India, around 128 million lack safe water services and about 840 million people don’t have sanitation services. Thus there is an urgent need to identify the different kinds of beneficiaries and communities whose accesss to WASH services need to be enhanced. The outcomes need to be enhanced in terms of adequacy, accessibility, affordability, quality and safety of the WASH services.
- WASH sectors come under concurrent subjects and both central and state governments can legislate on it. The collection of data related to WASH schemes are generally done at state level but it suffers from many discrepancies. The needs and barriers for segments of the population differ and consequently the strategies also need to be customised for the different segments. Therefore, policymakers are gradually moving away from a “one size fits all” approach to a more beneficiary-centric approach.
- A traditional approach has been to segment the beneficiaries on the basis of geographical and social context (GSS). Population was therefore segmented as rural, urban, low income and so on. Recently there is a trend to segment the beneficiaries on the basis of the human life cycle (LCS). Beneficiaries are thus segmented as children, adolescents, adults, senior citizens, and so on.
To be able to achieve our WASH targets, it is important that our policies adopt both the LCS and GSS approaches.
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