2.

Literature Review

2.1 Introduction
Sanitation refers to the provision of facilities and services for the safe management of
human excreta from the toilet to containment and storage and treatment onsite or
conveyance, treatment and eventual safe end use or disposal. More broadly sanitation
also included the safe management of solid waste and animal waste. Inadequate sanitation
is a major cause of infectious diseases such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery world-wide. It
also contributes to stunting and impaired cognitive function and impacts on well-being through
school attendance, anxiety and safety with lifelong consequences, especially for women and
girls. Improving sanitation in households, health facilities and schools underpins progress on a
wide range of health and economic development issues including universal health coverage and
combatting antimicrobial resistance. - By WHO
In accordance with the objectives of the study, a brief review of literature is presented here
under the following headings.

 Managing the earth‟s biggest mass gathering event and wash condition.

 Proper sanitation facility provided or not.

 Hygiene condition of Akharas.

 Facilities for boarding, lodging, toilet.

In order to ensure clean surroundings, hygiene and sanitation, the government as decided for
portable toilets, taps for drinking water, sweeping of roads etc. Further, the organisers have put
up billboards encouraging people to keep the venue clean.

2.1.1 Sanitation
The act or process of making sanitary and the promotion of hygiene and prevention of
disease by maintenance of sanitary conditions (as by removal of sewage and trash) - often
used attributively is called sanitation. -By: Meriam Webster
Sanitation means preventing people from coming into contact with wastes by providing facilities
and services for the treatment and disposal of human excreta and other liquid wastes produced
in homes, workplaces and public buildings. -By European Commission

Sanitation, the safe management of solid waste and animal waste. Inadequate sanitation is a
major cause of infectious diseases such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery world-wide. It also
contributes to stunting and impaired cognitive function and impacts on well-being through school
attendance, anxiety and safety with lifelong consequences, especially for women and girls.
Improving sanitation in households, health facilities and schools underpins progress on a wide
range of health and economic development issues including universal health coverage and
combating antimicrobial resistance.
In India only 36.4% of the total population have latrines, making it one of the worst nations for
sanitation coverage in the world. This results in widespread open defecation causing
contamination of the water supply by leaching and runoff, and spread of disease through insect
transport. Additionally, in India, there is the problem of dry, or basket-type latrines, which require
manual removal of feces. The caste historically designated to do this work, the scavenger caste,
is treated as inhuman, being shunned and looked down upon by others. Currently, India has
over 8 million dry latrines, requiring 750,000 scavengers daily to manually remove and carry the
human excreta for disposal many times on their heads with no protective gear. Not only is this
work demeaning, but it is also highly dangerous. The improper removal of human waste causes
scavengers to be infected and communicate to others many diseases. Therefore, such easily
preventable diseases as diarrhea (the simple act of washing hands with soap and water can
reduce diarrhoeal disease by one-third), malaria, cholera, hepatitis, typhoid, and polio are the
main causes of death in India, as well as in other third world countries.
The UN’s Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) and the Global Interfaith
WASH Alliance (GIWA) will be there as well, working with faith leaders to build awareness of the
role that clean water, sanitation and hygiene play in supporting human health and improving
prospects for a better life. It is a message that is hoped to resonate strongly with festival
participants, the vast majority of whom are from rural communities across India where the lack
of toilets, widespread open defecation and poor hygiene cause illness and death among
hundreds of thousands of people each year, and contribute to the perpetuation of poverty,
especially among those most vulnerable.
Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene at the World Largest Mass Gathering Kumbh Mela
Prayagraj Ardh Kumbh Mela, 2019 is the Ardh Kumbh Mela being held at Triveni Sangam in
Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India from 15 January to 4 March 2019. Around ₹4200 crore will be
allotted by the state government for the Ardh Kumbh 2019. About 199 projects of 16 government
departments are underway under four phases. There is an estimation of ₹210 crore which
would be spent on safe drinking water facilities and ₹60 crore to electrify the Kumbh area.
Focus is also laid on solid waste management to ensure that Ganga water is not contaminated
and putting up LED lights. The logo of 2019 Kumbh shows a group of Sadhus bathing in the
Sangam confluence of the Ganga and the Yamuna.
About 12 crore visitors were attend the shahi snan this year. The Shahi Snan, one of the most
important events of Kumbh Mela, will witness naked Naga Sadhus of different sects marching in
a big procession towards the river and then taking a dip at the auspicious time, amid the
chanting of hymns and shlokas. Some of these sadhus would come riding horses and chariots.
The vast Kumbh Mela ground spreads over 3,600 hectares and has been turned into a tent city.
Around one crore small tarpaulin tents – green, blue and saffron in color – have been set up on
the Kumbh Mela ground. Over 1.2 lakh makeshift toilets have been set-up and over 25,000
sweepers deployed to keep the area clean and 20,000 dustbins were installed.

Figure 1:- Swach Bharat Swach Kumbh

Sanitation workers in Uttar Pradesh set a Guinness World Record when 10,000 of them got
together for a three-minute cleaning drive at Kumbh. The event was organised by the Kumbh
Mela administration and the state Health Department. the sanitation workers indicate as the real
heroes at the Kumbh, as the cleanliness drive was the highlight at the biggest religious
congregation in the world. "Millions of people from India and abroad assembled at Kumbh over
the past two months and everyone was impressed by the cleanliness and hygiene.
This Kumbh also generate employment, a total of 20,000 sanitation workers — half hired by the
Health Department and the rest through outsourced vendors. They include the ‘Swachhta Doot’
keeping clean the 3,200 hectares, divided into 20 sectors, over which the Kumbh Mela is
spread, and the cleaners for its 1.2 lakh toilets. It makes the Kumbh Mela a prestige project, and
tagging it as Swachh Kumbh to fit in with the Centre’s Swachhta campaign, Rs 234 crore of the
total budget of Rs 4,200 crore has been allocated for sanitation — which includes renting and
setting up the portable toilets, buying equipment and disinfectants, paying wages, and providing
dustbins and brooms.

Figure 2: - Sanitation workers with masks gloves provided by Health department

Kumbh 2019: Managing sanitation on large scale

India has shown to the world that it is able manage sanitation and waste disposal programme
on a large scale. The test for this was in large traffic and crowd management cleanliness at the
recently concluded conclave of religious gathering, Kumbh Mela, at Prayagraj in the country’s
largest state, Uttar Pradesh. The Kumbh mela attracts millions of pilgrims from across the
country and abroad, including devotees, sadhus, and curious visitors. Designated as “Intangible
Cultural Heritage of Humanity” by UNESCO during its 12th session held at Jeju, South Korea ,
Kumbh 2019 entered into Guinness World Records due to largest sanitation drive at public
sites. A foolproof arrangement was made whereby garbage was lifted from dustbins and toilets
through latest techniques, preventing it from scattering on the ground, collecting it in a
compactor by Tata S vehicles and taking it out of the mela area for proper disposal and
processing. An elaborate 177-km sewer line network with pumping station was completed a
major triumph of the Kumbh. To keep the river water, clean in the mela area, 32 drains opening
in the river Ganga have been sealed and four schemes are being implemented in Prayagraj
under Namami Gange Programme. Arrangements were made to treat river water through bio-
remediation so that no effluent pollutes the rivers in Prayagraj.
Toilets, Poop, and Sanitation at the Kumbh Mela
The water and sanitation team would not proclaim ourselves as experts on toilets. The variety
of facilities takes into consideration the fact that pilgrims come from all sorts of backgrounds and
are use to a wide variety of toilets. A sign designates which toilets are for males and which are
for females. The most primitive bathroom facility is termed a “flag area.” The flag area consisted
of just an open area that is enclosed by a fence where a person can go about their business
anywhere within this designated area. There are also roadside urinals (top) and pit toilets for
defecation (bottom) that do not require water to flush the system. These types of latrines are
indirect pit latrine with a pipe that has a water seal and requires water to flush the system. One
set of 20 stalls can be built and be fully functional in 48 hours. As an initiative of the Green
Kumbh, two new types of toilets have been introduced for the first time at Kumbh 2019.

 The Zero Discharge Toilet System: - It is a treatment process with the goal of
removing all the liquid waste from a system. The focus of ZDT is to economically
reduce wastewater and produce clean water that is suitable for reuse, thus saving
money and being beneficial to the environment. ZDT systems employ advanced
wastewater treatment technologies to purify and recycle virtually all of the wastewater
produced.

Figure 3: - Zero Disposal Toilet System

  The Eco-Friendly Bio-Toilet: - The technology was originally developed by the Defence
Research Development Organizations. The best feature of this toilet is that it totally does
away with manual scavenging, is low on maintenance and installation cost and can be
adapted to any geo-climatic conditions of the country.

Figure 2:-Eco-Friendly Bio-Toilet

Surprisingly, with the sheer number of toilet facilities around the Kumbh, it did not smell bad at
all. This is because a large fleet of workers is employed to keep these facilities clean and odor
free by cleaning and spraying disinfectant multiple times a day. When asking people about the
various toilets, there was an overwhelming positive response to the cleanliness of these
facilities. The only negative responses we received pertained to the design of the urinals not
being very private and the small size of the stalls in the Eco-Friendly Bio-Toilet, which makes it
difficult to maneuver when inside one of the stalls.

Toilet cafe at Kumbh 2019

Toilet and cafe are the best examples of the twain shall never meet, but a toilet cafe in Kumbh
nagri has brought them together. It is not every day that you sit on the commode or a toilet seat
and enjoy a cuppa tea. A unique toilet cafe at the Parmarth Niketan camp in Kumbh Mela area
has used various types of toilet seats covered with glass as seating arrangements for the café
which is evoking interest among the visitors in the area. The open-air toilet cafe with a glass
dining table and commodes doubling up as chairs is doling out a clear albeit subtle message to
the visitors.
 Figure 3:- Toilet Cafe at Kumbh Mela 2019

The idea was to create awareness to keep our toilet as clean as our kitchen. In a city that is
known for meditation we wanted to spread that sanitation is also vital. It is a kind of sangam of
both. It is for attempting a sort of toilet ki seat par chai par charcha. Through this cafe, we take
the thought process of shauchalaya before devalaya, further. Sanitation comes before
meditation. Through this café it is trying to educate the masses, especially from the rural milieu,
about the importance of toilets and the health issues caused due to open defecation. Through
models and posters, displayed in the cafe, it also apprising the people about innovations in the
toilet seats and kinds of toilets.
Government contribution in the field of sanitation in Kumbh Mela 2019
PM Modi donates Rs 21 lakh from personal savings to Kumbh Safai Karamchari Corpus Fund
for welfare of Kumbh sanitation workers. He had described the sanitation workers as "real karm
yogis" and had applauded their contribution to cleanliness during the Kumbh Mela. He had even
washed the feet of sanitation workers and presented them ‘angvastram’. PM Modi distributed
the Swachh Kumbh Swachh Aabhaar awards to 'safaai karmacharis' (sanitation employees),
'swachhaagrahis', police personnel and 'naaviks' (boatmen).

2.2 Research papers

Journal PubMed (2015), According to this journal, on an average, the amount of faecal matter
produced per day per person is 128 gramme (gm). Based on this, we can estimate that the
faecal matter to be produced by around 10 crore tourists and pilgrims will be around 14,000
tonnes per day (assuming the maximum load on auspicious days). If we add the current
population of Prayagraj to the estimated number of pilgrims, the amount of faecal matter
produced in a day will increase to 15,000 tonnes.To manage such huge amounts of waste is a
herculean task. The existing sewage treatment capacity of the district—around 254 million litres
per day (MLD)—is not enough to tackle half of the sewage generated during the Mela.This
poses a great challenge for the state government as it will impact the groundwater quality,
environment as well as human health. Hence, questions arise on whether we can afford to leave
such huge quantities of liquid waste on the banks of river Ganga—untreated and unaddressed.

Dr. Richard Cash, (May22, 2014), Global Health Education and Learning: The Kumbh Mela
(2013) bathing festival took place on straw-reinforced sand that was located literally in the
Ganges riverbed (Allahabad), and used by millions of pilgrims during what is India‟s dry, or
winter, season. Toilets had been constructed as soon as the ground dried out enough for
workers to begin. February 10, 2013, traditionally the most auspicious day of the Kumbh Mela
for bathing. Each pilgrim was likely to use the festival grounds for toileting purposes. The
pilgrims were usually likely to pack up and leave, and workers would take everything apart,
collect remaining garbage. Waste from the city of Allahabad would resume emptying into the
river. The waters of the Kumbh Mela are rivers, not lakes; they flow, with fast and heavy currents
in some places. Various questions arise: - What would be the effect of large quantities of human
waste on the water quality as it reclaimed the area and carried the flow on across 500 miles of
rural India toward the sea? What would be the effect of the accumulated chemicals and toxins
used to sanitize and deodorize the area for the fair, on those who worshipped and washed with
the water during the rest of the year? Were the toilets at the Kumbh Mela in 2013 contributing to
a health or sanitation problem-or did they offer a positive lesson for other settings around the
world.

India Sanitation Coalition (2015), (Project Report of Kumbh Mela), Nashik Trimbakeshwar:
In terms of sanitation provision, three types of toilet facilities were provided by the Nashik
Municipal Corporation or Sulabh for the devotees and pilgrims – temporary toilets, permanent
toilets and portable toilets. Temporary toilets were built mostly in the Sadhu Gram area where
religious leaders had camps for themselves and their followers. The structure of these toilets
was made of tin with pans cemented. The temporary toilets were demolished after the Kumbh
Mela. Portable toilets are made of Fibre Reinforced Plastic (FRP) and easy to move/resemble.
They were placed in the ghat areas and parking (inner and outer). The number of toilets
available was estimated at 26,455 toilets at two main sites: 24,975 in Nashik and 1,480 in
Trimbakeshwar.
Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak (Ph.D., D.Litt), Sociologist & Social Reformer, Founder, Sulabh
Sanitation Movement, New Delhi(May 12-14,2016), (Simhastha Kumbh-mela): The main
objective of this great event is to acquire religiosity and salvation, which are among the four
great purusharthas of life. In our religious life, internal and external purity or shuchita has been
given a pride of place. The root word of shuchita is shuch which means purified, clean or
flawless. Thus, shauch or defecation carries the connotation of cleanliness or purity. The state
or condition after the act of defecation is one of purity. After the acts of defecation and bathing,
etc., we purify ourselves, externally and internally, with a sprinkling of water in the sites of
pilgrimage. We become worthy of offering prayers to God only after such cleanliness.
Annu Baranwal, Ankit Anand, Ravikant Singh, Mridul Deka (2015), (School of Habitat
Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.): Issues on water
sanitation and hygiene condition (Toilets).: To find out the status on water sanitation and
hygiene conditions, a study was done in the Akharas/Santhas of KumbhMela. Akhara/Santhas is
a Sanskrit word which denotes a place of practice with facilities for boarding, lodging, toilets,
etc. The water, sanitation and hygiene conditions of these Akharas are particularly important.
Total of five Akharas/Santhas were randomly selected from each of the sectors. There were 11
sectors included in the study, which resulted in the sample size of 55 Akharas/Santhas. A close-
ended questionnaire was used to interview each of the Akharas/Santhas. The questionnaire
was completed either by interacting with sadhus and people living there during the study or by
observation of the researcher. The information regarding number of person and toilets in each of
the Akharas/Santhas was obtained from those who were in charge of these Akharas/Santhas.
M. Vortmann, S. Balsari , S.R. Holman , P.G. Greenough (2015) in their study on Water,
Sanitation and Hygiene at the World’s Mass Gathering noted that The administration
constructed 35,000 toilets estimated to provide one toilet for every eight to ten people during
average attendance. Four types of sanitation facilities were provided and ranged in complexity
from open defecation fields to roadside urinals, pit latrines, and bio-digester toilets. All were
located at least 15 m away from the rivers. The majority were simple open-air pit latrines and
urinals, roofless, semicontained units bounded by 1.5-meter-high corrugated metal, segregated
by cloth partitions, and labeled with gender-specific logos. Earth mounds or bricks allowed the
user to squat off the ground; gravity-fed, non-flushing system of pipes led directly to unlined pits
dug into the sand or into hollow drums which were left in place after the event. The human
waste was left to decompose naturally or be washed away by the eventual rise of the rivers
during the monsoon season.Finally, acknowledging the favored habit of open defecation by
many attending the Mela, scattered throughout the Nagri were small gender-specific defecation
fields cordoned off by corrugated walls.
Gayatri Vinayak (Yahoo India Finance, Feb 8, 2019): With so many pilgrims around,
sanitation is bound to be an issue – something that brands are cashing on. Hence, while the
marketing team from Colgate-Palmolive is distributing Colgate Vedshakti toothpaste to pilgrims
for free, Dabur has set up the Dabur Red toothpaste dispensers which work on the lines of hand
wash dispensers.
Welspun India, the home textile maker, has been handing out towels to women to use in the
changing rooms. The company is offering 3,000 free trials of Welspun Quik Dry towels every
day, through its campaign ‘Jaldi Sukhe, Jaldi Sukhaye’, which is expected to reach at least 5
lakh people.
And these brands are not just selling their goods; they are offering services as well. While Dabur
Vatika has come up with ‘Vatika Lajja Kawach’ or changing rooms for people near the bathing
ghats, Welspun has also branded 20 changing rooms at the bathing ghat. Dabur Amla oil has
deployed volunteers on the ground who will try to unite lost children with their guardians.
Reckitt Benckiser, who has been active in most of the Kumbhs, has launched the Dettol Harpic
Banega Swachh India campaign which aims to spread awareness on the need to keep the
environment and surroundings clean and to adopt hygienic practices such as washing hands
and flushing the toilet. Dettol has also deployed hand mascots who will walk around distributing
Dettol soaps to pilgrims.
Bathroom brand Parryware has been promoting Swachh Kumbh by posting messages on the
importance of maintaining hygiene and sanitation across key locations such as bus stops,
railway stations and eateries. Parryware has also deployed boats for cleaning up the garbage
on the river banks and the in the river.
(Ogilvy takes proactive approach to Kumbh Mela Sourced from Mumbrella; additional
content by WARC staff News, 06 March 2019): For Patanjali, the presence of Baba Ramdev,
himself, at the Kumbh Mela will be the biggest draw. Collecting chillum from sadhus, the Yoga
guru has asked them to take a pledge to give up tobacco. According to him, the chillums that he
collects will be housed in a museum that he plans to build.
To address this problem, Ogilvy and Hindustan Unilever provided 5,000 waterproof sarees, and
handed them out for free throughout the festival.For Red Label tea, Unilever and Ogilvy
launched ‘Tea for Trash’, a vending machine that doubled as a rubbish collection point. Pilgrims
who disposed of rubbish by using the machine were rewarded with a free cup of tea.Lifebuoy
printed messages about the importance of handwashing on plates used to serve food, and
invited pilgrims to have dye put on their hands, telling them not to stop washing until the dye
was gone.

Economics Times (7th march 2019): Sanitation workers in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday set a
Guinness World Record when 10,000 of them got together for a three-minute cleaning drive at
Kumbh 2019. hailed the sanitation workers as the real heroes at the Kumbh, as the cleanliness
drive was the highlight at the biggest religious congregation in the world. "Millions of people from
India and abroad assembled at Kumbh over the past two months and everyone was impressed
by the cleanliness and hygiene that you all ensured."

Andrey Safronov, India, Arianism, Mithology (15 th march 2019): The festival of Kumbh Mela
is very archaic and perhaps it can be traced back yet to proto-Arian times. That is why it is not
coordinated with aarti that is purely Vedic in its spirit. In fact, Kumbh Mela is a ritual of
worshipping a river in form of a serpent by means of its symbolic performing and by offering it
virgins as a sacrifice. The ritual that has been in symbolic way described in a number of myths
and fairy-tales of different peoples that in fact comes as a cultural universal. Probably this ritual
and the myth associated with it precede the later myth of dragon-slaying.

Traian Penciuc, PhD, assist.prof., University of Arts, Târgu-Mureş: Theatre in Kumbh Mela
is exclusively religious. The theatre halls are relatively few compared to places of worship or
meditation: akhara or ashrams. According to my finding a total of 384 places of worship. Some
religious organizations invited and hosted religious theatre groups, which for several days were
performing on stages or in improvised spaces. There were even groups selected through the
internet, without making any discrimination between Hindus and non-Hindus. In my finding, the
shows are continuously performed, being presented the same three pieces: Ras Lila, the story
of love between Krishna and Radha, Ram Lila, a dramatization of the life of God Rama and
Ksheera Sagara Manthan, which actually is the legend that laid the foundation for the gathering
of Kumbh Mela. All the plays contain religious themes important for pilgrims and closely related
to Kumbh Mela religious motivation.
(Media as religious platform), Traian Penciuc, PhD, assist.prof., University of Arts, Târgu-
Mureş, 2013: The biggest confusion between divertissement and ritual is symptomatic for the
media view about Kumbh Mela is “What's the kind of fun that you can, perhaps, find in
Alahabad?" asked the presenter the reporter in the Kumbh Mela site. Waching that news you
have the impression that Kumbh Mela is an immense and overcrowded amusement park, a kind
of religious Disney Land. Mass media, avoids systematic the profound religious themes,
restricting its subject to an introduction or shallow exotic facts. All the documentaries and
footage I watched, reiterate the same information or opinions: -
1. Kumbh Mela is an ancient religious festival;
2. Pilgrims come here in cohorts so is the place is crowded.
3. Indian government makes huge efforts to manage this festival.
4. Gange is over polluted, still believers bathe there and, more, they drink that toxic water.
It is difficult to go deep to the essential layers of such a huge religious event. There is a politic
level to pierce through and under it the impermeability of every religion to the exterior eye. And,
stronger then these are the instinctive human need to religious intimity. For the Hindu believer
going to Kumbh Mela is an impulse of a religious instinct. It symbolise the difference between
pilgrimage and tourism. For the time being mass media confuses this pilgrimage site with a
tourist’s destination. However, for the moment media does not affect the piligrims perception of
Kumbh Mela. They are attached to traditions and believe. They are inside the event, having a
guru nearby, while mass media is outside, on the side of the video camera.

2.3 Theoretical Framework

A theoretical framework consists of concepts and, together with their definitions and reference to
relevant scholarly literature, existing theory that is used for your particular study. A theoretical
framework is used to limit the scope of the relevant data by focusing on specific variables and
defining the specific viewpoint [framework] that the researcher will take in analyzing and
interpreting the data to be gathered. It also facilitates the understanding of concepts and
variables according to given definitions and builds new knowledge by validating or challenging
theoretical assumptions.
The information extracted from the above literature review which called theoretical framework is
given below: -
 For the basic description of measures: - The number of kalpvasis and institutional
people satisfied from Mela this year.
 For the theoretical framework: - To ensure about sanitation facilities within Mela is
good or not. Our research area is sanitation so we have to underlying the construct part
related to sanitation like toilets, decomposition of hygiene material etc.