Feeling the pulse : a study of the total sanitation campaign in five states

Sanitation in India is a state subject. This implies that all the policy and programme  decisions and investments regarding sanitation are supposed to be made primarily by the state governments. However, the fact that sanitation has been a matter of major policy concern for Government of India (GoI) for more than two decades now underscores its growing importance at the level of central government. The GoI launched Central Rural Sanitation Programme (CRSP) in 1986 soon
after setting up of Rajiv Gandhi National Drinking Water Mission in 1985. The Mission itself came about in the wake of India’s commitments to the International Water and Sanitation Decade declared by the UN in 1980s and national priorities. [authors abstract]