Mobile Technology to Support Monitoring of Sanitation Usage in Rural Areas of India

OneWorld Foundation IndiaC 5, Qutub Institutional Area

New Delhi 110016

Context

Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) is a comprehensive national programme to accelerate sanitation coverage in rural areas by 2012.

The progress of TSC and achievements under NGP is tracked through an online monitoring system, which tracks relevant quantitative data on a monthly basis There are however limitations with regard to the validity of the self reported

data; and The measured indicators do not deal with the campaign’s impact on the

overall sanitation behavior.

In this backdrop, an effort was made to explore innovative use of Mobile technologies to strengthen the monitoring framework of TSC – especially with regard to sanitation behaviour of Community By collecting and transmitting monitoring data directly from the households

through mobile based application

Technology Framework

Harness Mobile based innovations to directly obtain feedback from target beneficiaries to measure programme outcome Global Positioning System (GPS) to define geo-location of the

stakeholder Visual image to verify physical existence of asset (toilet) Date & time stamp of data collection

Real time data transfer using GPRS/MMS Alternate store-forward option for areas with no network

coverage

Technology Framework

Implementation Overview

Proof-of-Concept (PoC) field deployment in two blocks: Rajgir Block of Nalanda district in Bihar Kandaghat Block of Solan district in Himachal Pradesh

State Block Gram Panchayat

Households

Bihar Rajgir 9 15589

Himachal Pradesh

Kandaghat 24 6675

Implementation Overview

12 Field Investigators and 1 Field Coordinator in each location

Each investigator in Kandaghat is assigned ~10 villages

Each investigator in Rajgir is assigned ~25 villages

Using APL/BPL ID from the list provided by department, Ration Card, Voter ID, PAN Card or MG NREGA Job Card ID for identification

After completing survey each house is marked on door. Each staff maintaining a field diary

15% sample verification

Development & Deployment

Management Information System

• On-line dash-board for real-time access of gathered data Generation of summary reports & Interface for preliminary analytics

Management Information System

Management Information System

Access to Toilet

Summary of Analysis Outcome

Toilet Coverage & Type of Facility (Household)

  RAJGIR Kandaghat

Yes 1449 12.65% 2554 81.03%

No 8805 76.87% 405 12.85%

Under construction 21 0.18% 99 3.14%

Broken/choked/incomplete 1180 10.30% 94 2.98%

Total 11455 -- 3152 --

Significant percentage of toilets constructed in Rajgir are either broken/choked/incomplete

Toilet Usage by Age and Gender (Member)

Rajgir Kandaghat

Toilet Coverage (HH that have access to toilet) : 1565 Toilet Coverage (HH that have access to toilet) : 2774

Toilet Usage by Members of the HH :9082 Toilet Usage by Members of the HH :13414

IHHL(%) Shared(%)

CSC(%) Total(IHHL+Shared +CSC)%

Open( %) IHHL(%) Shared(%)

CSC(%) Total(IHHL+Shared +CSC)%

Open( %)

10.95% 1.14% 0.15% 12.25% 87.75% 69.29% 9.91% 2.22% 81.42% 18.58%

Interestingly, no major gender variation in terms of toilet usage

Rajgir Kandaghat

Disposal of child feces reflects general sanitation behavior

Rajgir Kandaghat

Some members of the households that do have a toilet continue to practice open defecation Field observation reveals that the percentage is much higher in

Rajgir because people are not satisfied with the quality of toilet constructed

Scope for Scale-up

Technological Mobile application which is on Andrioid platform could be adapted to

other platforms such as Symbian GPRS connectivity used to transfer data mostly available in rural

areas Concern:

Research Investment for improving data-com stability in low-cost smart phones.

Options need to be explored for more durable batteries

Financial Financially feasible: low operational cost with economies of scale

Institutional Easy to integrate with current online monitoring system Eliminate the manual entry at district level

Comparative Assessment

Criteria Set for Comparison

Current Monitoring Framework Mobile Proposed Monitoring Framework

Technologies Used Online MIS and limited GIS Mobile Phones with GPS and Camera, Online IMIS

Digitized Data Entry Level

Manual Entry at District Individual Household

Frequency of Updates Monthly Real-time transmission

Photographs Separate In-built

Mapping Locational Data

GIS mapping for select districts to indicate percentage of sanitation coverage at Gram Panchayat level

Geo-tagging of individual household level. Locational data (Lat-Long) used to map sanitation coverage and behavior at household level

Time-stamp Not available Automatic time-stamp to indicate the time survey was conducted

Thank You

For further details please contact:

Naimur Rahman (naimur.rahman@oneworld.net) or Kedar Dash (kedar.dash@oneworld.net)

Tel: 011-41689000