The trend has become quite frequent in the recent times - be it an issue as big as corruption and black money or an issue so sensitive as water and sanitation, which affects the lives of thousands of Indians all across the nation.
The governments mostly do not act on their own despite boasting of huge funds under Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Rejuvenation Mission or heavy finances under Total Sanitation Campaign.
The most recent case is an appeal in the Supreme Court. The petitioner informed the court that over 300 schools in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh do not have any facility of drinking water (mind you, he is talking of drinking water as the question of safe drinking water does not arise in places where availability of water is in question).
Fortunately, the court took a serious note of the complaint and asked the government to ensure availability of drinking water in all the schools in a week's time. Not only Uttar Pradesh, a few other states like Jammu and Kashmir too, were asked to work on war footing.
Not only water, the court asked these states to ensure the facility of toilets in the schools as well.
In India, most of the girls drop out of schools after achieving puberty as majority of schools do not have toilets.
The best part of this case in the Supreme Court was that the court reminded the governments that it was violation of the human rights if it failed in providing drinking water and sanitation facilities to its people.
November 30 is the deadline for the governments to execute the court order - It would be interesting to watch whether the governments now act or continue to have a placid attitude to such an urgent need and come before the court with some lame excuse for its failure!
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