Monitoring and evaluation of FSM systems in India and optimization of NB FS treatment systems (India)

The study included desk review of performance of FSM systems across the sanitation value chain- from user interface to reuse in ten towns in India and findings from site visit to two of the ten towns. It focused on implementation, political will, inclusivity, enforcement of rules, and reuse aspects. It was observed that the major challenge in the FSM value chain is at the containment units, as these are not built according to guidelines in most of the areas and pose a risk to groundwater/surface waterbodies. Another issue was open dumping of FS still practiced at few places. The study highlighted best approaches from few of the towns that can be adopted in order to make the value chain sustainable and safer in terms of public health. Although nature-based (NB) treatment systems are cheaper and easy to operate with low OPEX, the land requirement is usually high. Therefore heat pumps have been installed in the sludge drying beds to reduce the drying time and thus the land requirement.