117 Environment & Urbanization Copyright © 2015 International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Vol 27(1): 117–136. DOI: 10.1177/0956247814560978 www.sagepublications.com Who’s the cleanest of them all? Sanitation scores in Indian cities SRIDHAR VEDACHALAM AND SUSAN J RIHA ABSTRACT Urban India is struggling to provide adequate water and sanitation services to its citizens. Open defecation, insufficient wastewater treatment, and mixing of untreated wastewater with stormwater and drinking water supplies are contributing to a severe health and economic crisis. Recent government measures such as the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission and National Urban Sanitation Policy (NUSP) are steps in the right direction. We draw on sanitation scores awarded to 421 cities under NUSP to identify factors that explain the heterogeneity in city-level scores. Our estimates suggest the higher scores are partly a result of city location. Population is non-linearly associated with sanitation score. Consistent with recent literature, we show that increased presence of household toilets does not impact city-level sanitation outcomes. Further, smaller cities perform differently than medium and large cities, pointing to a need for customized policy prescriptions for different classes of cities, preferably designed by municipal governments. KEYWORDS India / National Urban Sanitation Policy / sanitation score / urban I. INTRODUCTION “Whilst I realized the grandeur of the holy Ganga and the holier Himalayas, I saw little to inspire me in what man was doing in this holy place. To my great grief I discovered insanitation both moral and physical. … Thoughtless ignorant men and women use for natural functions the sacred banks of the rivers where they are supposed to sit in quiet contemplation and find God. They violate religion, science and laws of sanitation.” – Mahatma Gandhi, writing about the pilgrim town of Haridwar, Uttarakhand in Young India on 31 October 1929 Achieving the water and sanitation target (Target 7C) of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 rests significantly on India, as it contributes a significant proportion of the population still without “sustainable access to safe water and sanitation”. Ever since the adoption of the MDGs by the United Nations General Assembly in 2000, (1) the terms “sustainable”, “access” and “safe water [or] sanitation” have been contested. The revision of the target to measure access to improved water and sanitation did not help the matter, but has provided the most tangible way of measuring progress on this extremely challenging goal. Sridhar Vedachalam is a postdoctoral associate at the New York State Water Resources Institute at Cornell University. His research is centred on water and wastewater infrastructure issues, including policy, planning, financing, use and regulation. Address: 1123 Bradfield Hall, Ithaca, NY, USA 14853; e-mail: sv333@cornell.edu Susan J Riha is a professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University. In her role as director of the New York State Water Resources Institute, she is focusing on improving water infrastructure planning, adaptation of water resource management to climate change, and the impact of energy systems, including shale gas, on water resources. Address: e-mail: sjr4@ cornell.edu Acknowledgement: Veeravenkata Sandeep Vanka provided research support in data gathering and organization. This research was supported in part by the New York State Environmental Protection Fund via the Hudson River Estuary Program of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (USA). 1. United Nations (2000), United Nations Millennium Declaration, United Nations 560978EAU 0 0 10.1177/0956247814560978Environment and UrbanizationVedachalam and Riha research-article 2014