On World Toilet Day I am thinking of Ram Krishn Prasad the cab driver who drove me home from Delhi airport in 2018. He was such an amazing son of India that I requested him to come inside and allow me to record his message. (1)
How much he has learned by listening & observing even though he never went to school! He built a toilet for his house in the village at a total cost of 75,000 Rs. It's probably a twin pit latrine with pour-flush system. The stabilized waste is used as manure in the fields. (2)
Additionally, he made arrangements for grey water (bathwater, kitchen wastewater etc) to be filtered and used in the fields. He also reuses some water for cleaning indoors. He says he got the idea to reuse water when he stayed at the house of a Mukhia in Rajasthan. (3)
Meanwhile, the other people in his village did not like to use the toilets in their houses built with the help of money given under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. They locked the toilets and used them as storerooms, something that many of us in the sanitation sector are aware of. (4)
They worried about the pit getting full which can easily be addressed with training. He told village neighbours that sending their women to the fields is a recipe for disaster because they become the prey for dirty-minded men. Why not safely use toilets in their houses? (5)
He says toilet pans often don't hv the right slope & villagers don't have proper training on how to get toilets built or how to maintain. He argued with the mukhia of his village to be proactive & thinks mukhias are often useless & responsible for the backwardness of villages.(6)
I think this man should get out of his driving job and work full time in the village as a trainer and ambassador of Swachh Bharat. Even his views on marriage & education of girl child are wonderful. (7)
He resisted every effort by parents to get him married when he was in his teens & agreed only when he was ready. His eldest child is a girl studying in a pvt school. His leadership qualities should not be wasted. I can't reach him on phone so I don't know what he's doing nowadays
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