At FIN, we have long marked World Water Day with webinars designed for learning. This year, I am sharing something I hope goes further: a recorded interview with Anil Bhatia, one of India’s most compelling sanitation entrepreneurs and the mind behind the Suvidha community toilet model.
I invite educators in social work, business, and economic development to use this interview in their classrooms to spark discussion.
My sincere thanks to Anil, who shares his personal journey and provides candid answers about how he built a financially sustainable sanitation service that serves underserved communities in India.
Each question in the interview (given below) is paired with a student reflection prompt covering entrepreneurship theory, business models for the poor, labour markets, community participation, gender, public-private partnerships, and social infrastructure.
1. Who are you? What is your background? How did you come to be a sanitation entrepreneur?
– For students: how does this narrative correspond to the different stages of entrepreneurship? What characteristics of an entrepreneur does Anil exhibit?
2. For community toilets – the main problem is balancing the financial sustainability of the service with ensuring accessibility to the poor, as they cannot always pay. How did you tackle this?
– For students: how does this narrative correspond to the business models given in the literature on financial sustainability in markets for the poor?
3. How did you address the challenge of finding labour to maintain community toilets, as this work is stigmatised?
– For students: What are the characteristics of any challenging work? What are the strategies deployed by companies to ensure labour for them?
4. In what ways did the local community participate?
– For students: how does this narrative correspond to the different models of community participation in the success of an enterprise in markets for the poor?
5. What is the gender profile of your users/staff?
– For students: What insight can you draw on gendered markets?
6. Can you elaborate on who was involved in creating Suvidha?
– For students: What is the role of each stakeholder in the Suvidha enterprise? How does it correspond to other consortia evoked in the literature?
7. What can you say about the governance of community toilets?
– For students: What insight can you infer from public-private partnerships from this example?
8. What are the challenges you faced? What is the future?
– For students: How are social infrastructures different from physical infrastructure? Whose responsibility are they? Draw up your business plan for setting up a community toilet.
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Ministry of Jal Shakti, Department of Water Resources, RD & GR, Govt. of India MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
