Looking beyond capital costs - life cycle costing for sustainable service delivery

In India, though considerable investments are made through the Total Sanitation Campaign (flagship program of Govt of India) the ground realities of sanitation facilities are very poor and alarmingly dangerous for human health. The capital investments made on sanitation are often going to waste, as the toilets constructed are not being used. The innovation of Nirmal Gram Puraskar (NGP) award increases the use of toilets but the indications are that it does not guarantee sustained open-defecation free status. The study conducted by WASHCost Project in Andhra Pradesh reveals that, in many NGP villages more than half of the families defecate outside. The intra village variation between the sanitation practices of the poor and rich are significant and the subsidies provided by the Government do not even meet 30% of the total investment required to construct the toilet. Based on analysis of household and village-level data from over a hundred villages and more than five thousand households, this paper i) analyses public and private expenditure using the life cycle costing approach and ii) gives particular attention to identifying factors and drivers that lead to differential access to and use of sanitation services by the poor and non-poor.