Significance of Granular Real Time Data for studying ground realities, addressing gaps in governance, and for measuring impact

Abstract

Sanitation interventions within slums have typically focussed on the health risks of insufficient access to sanitation, the significance of understanding the context has always been neglected. This study examines the range of usage of data collected, analysed and put to use to pave way for systematic, informed and targeted service deliveries such as household sanitation. It also sheds light on spatial real-time granular data being the foundation for not just measuring high scale impacts of interventions but also for evidence based challenges to stereotypes that are entrenched in society’s psyche. A household level survey covering 463 households across four urban areas of Maharashtra namely: Kolhapur, Navi-Mumbai, Pimpri-Chinchwad, and Pune, involved 2,414 respondents in the pre-intervention survey while 2,306 respondents in the post-intervention survey. We found that household sanitation has had an overwhelming impact on not just the tier one cities where we surveyed but also the awareness levels of tier two cities have been very high and interesting to observe. A better understanding of the wide spectrum that each data set offers in studying slum level and household level demographics, character, behaviour, context, aspirations, and background is needed to enable context-specific, gender-sensitive and sustainable sanitation interventions.