Septic tanks and single pits are safe sanitation technologies that meet the standards prescribed by the Sustainable Development Goals, according to the Union Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation.
In response to an article in The Hindu titled “Only 26% of rural toilets use twin-leach pits..”, on March 18, 2019, the Ministry said the States were making adequate arrangements to ensure that the faecal waste generated caused no environmental damage.
The article, based on raw data from the National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey (NARSS) 2018-19, concluded that “the remainder of rural toilets [that do not use twin-leach pits] could create a new sanitation nightmare...”.
The article itself mentioned that 34% of rural toilets are connected to septic tanks but failed to clarify that this was a perfectly safe sanitation solution, the Ministry said.
A large proportion of the remaining toilets have single-leach pits which, like the twin-leach pits, are also safe. The twin-leach pit toilet is among the most economical and safe sanitation technologies, and has been promoted and extensively adopted. However, there are other safe technologies like septic tanks or single pits.
The Ministry had been informed by UNICEF that their preliminary findings from a study indicate that Open Defecation Free (ODF) villages are over 20 times less likely to have their groundwater sources and drinking water contaminated, and over 30 times less likely to have their food contaminated (a proxy for reduction in soil pollution), a statement said.
The Hindu had reported (full version here: http://bit.ly/twinpit) that the problem was lack of manpower to empty and clean such tanks. It quoted the head of Water Aid, who is part of the Ministry’s own expert group on NARSS, as saying that there is a manpower challenge, given the social context of the country and caste prejudices against such cleaning work, even while acknowledging that the government was preparing technological and entrepreneurial solutions to the problem.
The Hindu had also reported that transportation and treatment of faecal waste – including waste emptied from septic tanks – is a problem, and that surveys have shown such waste is often dumped into local ponds and farmlands.
