Digital India….Or Toilets which one???

My article is not criticism neither it’s against of any policy but a thought where we need to draw the attention of the society. We are currently focusing on Digital India and on data business for the young generation. It’s true that today the young generation particularly the ones from village or from Tier 3 cities have smart phones. Hence private business of telecom industry is bound to grow and hence Digital India is being though to exploit and capitalize on the same. We are focusing on increasing the GDP of India but are we focusing on the factors which slow down the GDP growth. Sorry capitalist are not bothered about that part.  Do you ever think that India leads the world in open defecation. At least 636 million Indians lack toilets, according to the latest census data, a crisis that contributes to disease, childhood malnutrition, loss of economic output and, as highlighted recently, violence against women.  Yes we don’t have basic amenities in place but we are trying to get FDI investments in exploitation of common people.

The image above speaks of million thinks silently hence it also provokes the thought that why capitalist can’t invest in toilets in these rural places.  Now please don’t raise the voice that government has allotted separate funds for building toilets. Well the budget was also during the last 10 years but did the money reach the proper place. Hence, when capitalism is the God then its better to pray for the God rather trying to become a monk. Look at your neighbors and their stories of turnaround.  India could also learn valuable lessons from poorer neighbors such as Bangladesh, which has cut rates of open defecation from 19% to 3% in just two years by decentralizing sanitation programmes. Those who are thinking that our prime minister is already in the process of solving this issue well for them I would like to accentuate their attention that recently used her scholarship funds to build a toilet. If government funds allotted previously have been used then today we should not have faced the problem. In the 11th Five-Year Plan (2007-11), the flagship Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) has been allocated $4 billion in 593 districts for rural toilets.  even locally-implemented toilet and hygiene interventions could have saved $32.6 billion, equivalent to 3.9% of GDP annually; a potential gain of $29 per capita.

We talking about smart cities developments and creating a new class of Aerotroplois but did you ever think that Indian Women and girls often have no other option than to venture out — often at night and alone — to relieve themselves. At a time when the government of India talks about Smart Cities, Digital India and ‘selfies with daughters’, statistics indicate that 60 per cent of all houses without toilets in the world are in India. The funniest part is that Global economy knows about the Indian inabilities and hence they are skeptical regarding taking a giant leap. Even the CSR activities have failed to resolve the issue of sanitation in India. Since capitalist focus on growing capital but not developing the society. We don’t find debate on social media about building toilets neither we find any private advertisements asking people to build toilets.

 The story does not end here. The shocking part is that schools also don’t have proper sanitation facilities. Recently I was travelling to Rajasthan and I found a strange story which pushes back the gilrd students from coming to school. During their menstruation adolescent girls have to  skip school for five to six days every month. In India, only 58.82% schools have separate toilets for girls. Some schools have only one single toilet, which is most often unclean. Single toilets increase the risk of not only disease transmission, but also sexual harassment.  These sexual harassments are not known to us since often they are killed within the voices. So do we need Digital India or do we need to eliminate the basic amenities problems then only we can find proper society. I don’t deny that we don’t need developments we don’t need smart cities etc but are we bridging the gap of rural India with urban. Yes we are doing it in another way where the rural migration is happening more creating pressure on the urban society from angles and rural India remains in dark.  We celebrate 2^nd October, 15th August ,26^th January but are we really valuing these dates.  We are focusing too much from overseas where as domestic issues creates lot of potentiality for capitalist to play its game. Can any one tell me why Bill gates Foundation have to give money to India when our Industrial Giants are capable enough? Does anyone has any answere to this?