ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the evolution of urban sanitation and sanitation policies in independent India, to provide a context to the sanitation efforts that civil society organisations have been involved in. It discusses government policies from an evolutionary perspective through successive Five-Year Plans. The chapter covers some of the important milestones influencing and impacting sanitation in India since 1980 and the role of global water and sanitation-focused development institutions, from the start of the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade. In the 1970s, sanitation in developing countries emerged as a new development objective for international development aid institutions. One of the earliest development partners in sanitation was UNICEF, which had been active in the field since 1966. While initially most of its efforts were in rural sanitation, it increased its attention to the issue of Water Sanitation and Hygiene in urban areas too.
