Other Resources
Citywide Inclusive Sanitation through Scheduled Desludging Services: Emerging Experience from India
November 2019
The common practice for desludging of septic tanks is “demand-based desludging” rather than a regular service. Such practices have adverse social and environmental impacts. To overcome these shortcomings, scheduled desludging is advocated. This paper published in Frontiers in Environmental Sciences first reviews the need for regular desludging of septic tanks and then outlines the experience of scheduled desludging for inclusive, equitable, and sustainable sanitation to achieve social and environmental benefits in the cities of Wai and Sinnar. In both cities, a performance-linked annuity payment framework is used to engage a private desludging enterprise. Payment is met through a sanitation tax and transfer from the general property taxes. The paper outlines the benefits of scheduled desludging and argues that it is critical to achieving inclusive sanitation. This paper is authored by Dr.Meera Mehta, Dr.Dinesh Mehta and Upasana Yadav.
