Overview of India’s National Urban Sanitation Policy 2008

Urban India in the early 2000s was bursting at the seams. Millions of people were moving into cities every year, but sewerage networks, toilets, and waste management systems were nowhere close to keeping pace. Open defecation in alleyways, untreated sewage flowing into rivers, and slums without a single working toilet had become routine sights. To address this growing crisis, the Government of India introduced the National Urban Sanitation Policy (NUSP) in October 2008, a landmark framework that, for the first time, treated urban sanitation as a distinct national priority separate from rural sanitation and water supply.

Why a separate urban sanitation policy was needed 🔗

Before 2008, sanitation in cities was largely addressed in fragments through various schemes, with no unified vision. The result was stark. According to government estimates cited when the policy was launched, only about 10 percent of Indian cities had a sewerage network, and existing treatment systems could handle just 21 percent of the wastewater generated. The rest flowed untreated into rivers, groundwater, and open drains, creating massive public health and environmental damage.

The NUSP recognised that urban sanitation problems are different from rural ones. Cities have higher population density, complex land tenure issues, mixed waste streams, and large informal settlements. A copy-paste approach from rural programmes simply would not work. The policy was therefore designed to give states and Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) a comprehensive framework to plan, fund, and execute sanitation reforms tailored to urban realities.

Policy objectives and goals 🔗

The overarching vision of the NUSP is captured in a single, ambitious statement: that all Indian cities and towns should become totally sanitised, healthy and liveable, with a special focus on hygienic and affordable sanitation facilities for the urban poor and women. To turn this vision into measurable action, the policy laid down several specific goals.

Awareness generation and behaviour change 🔗

The policy started with the recognition that infrastructure alone cannot solve sanitation. Citizens, municipal staff, and elected representatives all needed to understand why sanitation matters. The NUSP therefore made awareness generation its first specific goal, pushing for sustained communication campaigns that link sanitation to health, dignity, and economic productivity.

Open defecation-free cities 🔗

One of the most visible and widely cited goals was making every Indian city open defecation-free (ODF). This was not merely about building toilets but about ensuring access, use, and maintenance. The NUSP explicitly called for all cities to become open-defecation-free and promoted comprehensive approaches to sanitation reform, including community toilets in slums, public toilets at transit points, and household-level facilities wherever feasible.

Integrated city-wide sanitation 🔗

Rather than treating toilets, sewers, drainage, and solid waste as separate silos, the NUSP pushed for an integrated approach. Every city was expected to develop a comprehensive City Sanitation Plan (CSP) that covered the entire sanitation chain, from safe confinement of human waste to its collection, transportation, treatment, and final disposal.

100% sanitation coverage 🔗

The policy aimed for universal access. This meant every household, including those in slums and informal settlements, should have access to safe sanitation. It also meant the elimination of manual scavenging, a goal that connects the NUSP to broader human rights and dignity commitments enshrined in Indian law.

Sanitary and safe disposal of waste 🔗

The vision extended beyond toilets to the entire waste ecosystem. The policy emphasised the safe disposal of all human and liquid wastes, alongside integrated city-wide sanitation plans, institutional strengthening, behavioural change, pro-poor approaches and cost-effective technologies.

Key components of the policy 🔗

To achieve these goals, the NUSP built itself around several interconnected components, each addressing a structural weakness in how Indian cities had historically managed sanitation.

Awareness and behavioural change 🔗

The policy treated sanitation as a behavioural issue as much as an engineering one. It called for sustained Information, Education and Communication (IEC) campaigns at national, state, and city levels. The idea was to move sanitation up the political and social agenda so that citizens demanded better services and elected representatives saw value in delivering them.

Integrated city-wide sanitation planning 🔗

This was arguably the most transformative component. Instead of one-off projects, every city was expected to map its sanitation situation comprehensively, identify gaps, and prepare a roadmap covering short, medium, and long-term interventions. The City Sanitation Plan is a comprehensive document that describes measures for governance, technical, financial, capacity enhancement, awareness raising and pro-poor interventions, aiming to support Urban Local Bodies, NGOs, CBOs, citizens and private sector agencies to achieve 100% sanitation.

Reaching the unserved and the poor 🔗

The policy gave special attention to slum dwellers, pavement dwellers, migrant workers, and women, who suffer the most from poor sanitation. Community toilets, shared facilities, and targeted subsidies were promoted in areas where individual household toilets were not feasible due to space or tenure constraints.

Operation and maintenance of facilities 🔗

A common failure of past sanitation programmes was that toilets and treatment plants were built but then fell into disrepair. The NUSP therefore placed strong emphasis on long-term operation and maintenance (O&M), insisting that funding plans and institutional arrangements include adequate provisions for upkeep, not just construction.

Addressing manual scavenging 🔗

The policy directly tackled the issue of manual scavengers, calling for their rehabilitation and the elimination of practices that violate human dignity. This aligned with the broader legal framework against manual scavenging in India and pushed cities to adopt mechanised cleaning systems.

Implementation strategies 🔗

The NUSP recognised that even the best-designed policy fails without a clear implementation plan. It therefore laid out structured roles, capacity-building measures, and financial strategies.

Institutional roles across levels of government 🔗

The policy assigned clear responsibilities to different tiers. The Central Government was responsible for policy guidance, technical assistance, and financial support through national programmes. State Governments were expected to develop their own State Sanitation Strategies and support cities in preparing CSPs. Urban Local Bodies, drawing their authority from the 74th Constitutional Amendment, were placed at the centre of execution, responsible for service delivery, coordination, and engagement with citizens.

This three-tier structure was important because the NUSP was based on the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act of 1992 and aimed to strengthen Urban Local Bodies, with particular focus on improving hygienic conditions for the urban poor and women through cost-efficient technologies.

Capacity building 🔗

Many municipalities, especially in smaller towns, simply did not have the technical expertise to plan sewer networks, design faecal sludge treatment plants, or run citywide awareness campaigns. The NUSP therefore included a strong capacity-building component, supporting training of municipal engineers, sanitation inspectors, planners, and elected officials. National and state-level training institutes were expected to develop curricula, while partnerships with universities and NGOs were encouraged.

Financial planning 🔗

Sanitation infrastructure is expensive, and most ULBs in India operate on tight budgets. The NUSP therefore promoted a diversified funding strategy. Funding options laid out in the policy included direct central and state support through existing schemes, public-private partnerships, and external funding agencies. Schemes like the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) were aligned with NUSP objectives so that infrastructure funding could be channelled into sanitation projects.

Engagement with community-based organisations 🔗

The policy placed strong emphasis on participation. Resident welfare associations, self-help groups, NGOs, and community-based organisations were seen as essential partners, not just beneficiaries. In slum sanitation, in particular, community involvement in design, construction, and maintenance was shown to dramatically improve sustainability. The NUSP recommended development of special strategies for slums and poor settlements as an integral part of the City Sanitation Plans, recognising the specific difficulties these settlements face in accessing basic sanitation services.

Monitoring and benchmarking 🔗

To track progress, the Ministry of Urban Development introduced a rating system for cities. The rating exercise ranked hundreds of cities on indicators covering sanitation outputs, processes, and outcomes, classifying them as Red, Black, Blue, or Green based on their performance. The ratings created public pressure on cities to improve and provided a benchmark for comparing progress.

Legacy and connection to later programmes 🔗

The NUSP did not exist in isolation. It laid the conceptual and institutional groundwork for later flagship initiatives. The Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) launched in 2014 built directly on NUSP objectives like ODF cities, integrated waste management, and behaviour change. The Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) picked up the infrastructure financing dimension. Even today, when state governments draft their urban sanitation strategies or when cities prepare faecal sludge management plans, the structural template often traces back to the NUSP.

That said, the policy has also faced critique. Progress on City Sanitation Plans has been uneven across states, the rating exercise has not always translated into sustained improvements, and the experience of urban poor populations in many cities still falls short of the policy’s promises. Implementation gaps in operation and maintenance, weak ULB finances, and insufficient attention to faecal sludge management in non-sewered areas remain ongoing challenges.

Still, the policy’s enduring contribution lies in how it reframed urban sanitation in public discourse: not as a technical add-on, but as a city-wide, people-centred, integrated public service tied directly to public health, environmental protection, and human dignity.

What do you think? If you had to redesign the NUSP for the realities of 2026, with rapid migration, climate stress, and emerging technologies like decentralised faecal sludge treatment, which two changes would you prioritise? And in your own city or town, what does “totally sanitised” actually look like, and how far is it from the current reality?

References

1. https://www.india.gov.in/national-urban-sanitation-policy
2. https://www.nawasis.org/portal/digilib/read/national-urban-sanitation-policy-ministry-of-urban-development-government-of-india/2688
3. https://sswm.info/node/7934
4. https://www.rti.org/rti-press-publication/india-urban-sanitation-toilet-challenge/fulltext.pdf
5. https://sswm.info/content/national-urban-sanitation-policy
6. https://sswm.info/node/7925
7. https://www.susana.org/en/knowledge-hub/resources-and-publications/library/details/2369
8. https://www.indiawaterportal.org/articles/national-urban-sanitation-policy-0
9. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/194811467618178713/pdf/106727-WP-add-series-PUBLIC.pdf
10. https://sswm.info/node/7928