With the recent thrust on making cities and villages open defecation-free, as a natural corollary, the focus has to shift to faecal sludge management. That is not the case yet. Lack of awareness on sludge management, particularly emptying septic tanks manually, has been leading to accidents.
Sludge management has been receiving attention of late and the government of Andhra Pradesh has issued a GO in March 2017 on ‘Faecal Sludge and Septage Management in Urban Local Bodies’ totalling 110.
In the policy and operative guidelines for ULBs it states: “UGD serves less than 10 % of urban households in the State. It is not projected to reach 50 % even in major towns and cities over the next decade. Majority of the towns, not designated as Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) towns, will continue using on-site sanitation in foreseeable future.” Therein lies the crux of the problem.
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Even in a major city like Visakhapatnam, faecal sludge management system is not yet in place. It is creating sludge disposal facilities. “Soon we will streamline the functioning of suction truck operators, fix a rate for them for emptying septic tanks,” says Chief Medical Officer (Health) A. Hemanth.
Until the entire city is covered under UGD and the households are connected to sewage treatments plants, on-site management has to continue.
As of now about one lakh of the 4.5 lakh households have UGD connections. Though the service is available, not all households are utilising the network available. Under AMRUT, another 30,000 will be connected.
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No policy fo rual areas
With the scenario being so in urban areas, there is no policy on sludge management in rural areas. The incident at Upamaka in Nakkapalli mandal in which four of a family died recently after inhaling poisonous gases during the extension of a septic tank was a pointer.
“It is an avoidable tragedy. They did not know that the gases are poisonous. We should carry out information, communication and education campaigns there. In the mad rush for construction (of toilets), it is not getting due importance,” observed Joint Collector G. Srijana, who visited the village.
It is generally the practice in rural areas to construct pit latrines which do not require frequent emptying. Some are going in for septic tanks as an improvement. There is a need for training people and capacity building in rural areas on septage management, says an activist.
All the accidents that occurred in the recent past are in rural areas.
Awareness campaign
“As of now there is no policy for rural areas. We are going to carry out an awareness campaign from April 1 as a part of ODF Plus using material like posters, CDs etc,” says Superintendent Engineer (Rural Water Supply and Sanitation) Meher Prasad.
Even in urban areas, manual cleaning of septic tanks may take place with vacuum tank operators charging a high amount depending on location and demand. This could result in accidents.