Investigating factors influencing FSTP utilisation in India (India)

In the past five years, the increasing awareness on safe FSM led to the design and implementation of many Faecal Sludge Treatment Plants (FSTP) in India. More than 40 FSTP’s were built across the country as demonstration projects are observed to be largely underloaded or underutilised. Not meeting the designed operations of treating faecal sludgeis becoming a raising a concern. A number of studies indicated that poor operations andmaintenance capacity, difficulties in delivering faecal sludge, inconsistent quality and quantity of FS, are some of the factors responsible for the poor utilisation of FSTP’s. Furthermore, the problem of FSTP’s underutilisation is yet to be explored and fully understood. In this master thesis, a desk-based study was conducted to identify Critical Success Factors (CSF) associated with FSTP’s utilisation. CSF’s of eight FSTP’s in India were assessed to relate their actual utilisation to their CSF scores. As a result, 22 CSF’s were identified, and it was found that local government ownership and access tocapital are the CSF’s found to have possibly the highest impact on FSTP’s utilisation.