Sustainable business models in Sanitation in India

Abstract

India ranks 4th in the world by nominal GDP and 2nd in terms of population with about 1.2 billion people. However, when it comes to sanitation and waste management, India has performed very poorly. Open defecation is a big problem in India – about 60% of the approximately 1 billion people who defecate openly across the world live in India. While people living in some of the very modern cities may not be able to relate to this problem, 600 million people in India, which is over half the population, defecate openly1 . More people in India have access to mobile phones than to toilet facilities (50% vs. 36% of the population)2 . This affects health and human capital to a great extent through deaths due to water-borne diseases and poor cognitive development in children. Hence, sanitation is an issue that warrants a lot of attention and hence it is worthwhile to explore various business models in this space. It should be noted that the scope of this the word “sanitation” in this study is only human waste and does not include other solid waste like kitchen waste.