In 2001, there were 1.27 cror rural families in Andhra Pradesh. Of these, only 18% or about 23 Lacks had private toilets. Keeping this in view, a big scheme to provide 32.5 lacks individual toilets and 58, 000 school toilets are planned. As awareness program in this regard is being conducted.

Even when toilets are built, not all them are being used for the purpose. While some of them are still under construction, some are not built according to the conventional layouts. Some people are unwilling to give up the old habits. Some others have modified the toilet into a bathroom, or a storeroom and some times even as a kitchen.

In the schools, lack of water has prevented toilets from being used as much as expected. Other reasons for non- uses are linked to the unhygienic conditions in toilets very soon after initial use and /or the inability to change old habits. The health and hygiene awareness in the children is very less.

In Anantapur, under the program named Harivillu children have been encouraged to use toilets built in every school. Clean conditions are being maintained around the toilets. On the walls of the toilets and the school, messages on sanitation are written in rainbow colors. A hundred percent results have been achieved now with water being continuously available in the toilets in this district.

Dealing with water

To understand the treatment of water pollution, let us look at an example. If we find food too salty, we add fresh lime to it. To deal with excess of sourness we add salt. Similarly, in acidic wastes (below pH 7}, we add alkaline material and stabilize it. If it is alkaline or too salty (above pH 7), we add acid to it. This is the first step in the control of water pollution, called neutralization. In the second stage, just as we extract fat milk by boiling it, effluent water is heated until it evaporates; Leaving behind the solid waste to be filled in the land fills.

It is not easy to clean polluted water. And if the industries, which want to do it, are small, it works out to be very expensive. Further, they lack the technical knowledge to do it.

Keeping this in mind, the central and state governments have decided to encourage setting up of common effluent Treatment plants (CETP).

As part of this plan, a common effluent treatment plant was installed at Jeedimetla, an industrial estate just outside Hyderabad, in 1989. It treats the effluents from the chemical and pharmaceutical industrial located in the neighborhood. All the small industries send their effluents to the CEPT. With some improvements in technology, it handles wastes from about 2000 houses as well as. Presently, about 1500 kilometers of effluents are treated to some extent every day.

Sewage Treatment System

Everyday in Hyderabad, about 450 million liters of sewage is produced. Only Amber pet has an effluent treatment plant that was designed to treat a mere 115 million liters a day. The population of Hyderabad increased, but the capacity of the sewage treatment plant did not. Now the plan is to increase its capacity four times to meet the quaintly of domestic effluents. The other cities that have treatment facilities are Ramagundam, Rajahmundry, Kothagudem, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam. At all these are other places, the sewage freely into drinking water sources.

Normally, to reduce the damage from the effluents, they are diluted. But when water is not easily available, some other liquid is chosen. In Jeedimetla, they are using domestic waste water instead of fresh water. The bacteria present in domestic wastes treat the chemical wastes. But the treated water is not completely free from pollution. If it is released, fumes and terrible odor fill the area. Ground water sources are contaminated.

Keeping this factor in mind, an eighteen kilometers long pipeline has been laid from Jeedimetla to Amber pet where a swage treatment plant exists. In the same way, a treatment plant located at the Indian Drugs and pharmaceuticals limited, has been taken over by these industries to clean the effluents, about 630 tankers loads a day.

Similar activities are being undertaken at the Patncheru industrial area. But here, domestic waste is not mixed in the treatment.