“This was an incredible achievement. We are proud to have worked with Government, other businesses, philanthropies, and others, to surpass expectations and deliver sanitation facilities to thousands of students, patients and passengers. It was a team effort, inspired by SWA’s principles of multi-stakeholder participation, with SWA’s Mutual Accountability Mechanism helping to keep everyone involved focused on success.”
Sanjay Banka, Executive Chairman, Banka Bio Limited
Banka Bio is a private sector partner from India. In 2019, they tabled an ambitious commitment under SWA’s Mutual Accountability Mechanism. Banka Bio It committed to "provide sustainable sanitation facilities, in the form of bio-toilets, to 250,000 students, primarily from low-income families in partnership with larger corporations through their corporate social responsibility programmes".
In 2023, Banka Bio was able to report that they had fully achieved their commitment.
Several crucial elements of the programme have been identified by Banka Bio’s Executive Chairman Sanjay Banka, as key to its success. One of these is its conscious alignment and partnership with India’s Swachh Bharat Mission, the world’s largest sanitation initiative, launched by the Indian gGovernment in 2014. Aligning with such national priorities has meant that the Government – and other stakeholders – have been more easily able to understand and support the development and objectives of the Banka Bio programme.
Banka Bio embodies the spirit of SWA’s focus on multi-stakeholder working, which has enabled it to tap into a wide range of expertise, through collaboration and partnerships. The BioLoo project to deliver the Mutual Accountability Mechanism commitment was designed to ensure that a wide range of stakeholders are consistently engaged in the programme. Banka Bio has also partnered with Business Call to Action, housed within the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), to undertake impact assessment of its programmes, as well as the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University, to boost impact research in areas that can make delivery of the programmes more effective and efficient.
According to Sanjay Banka, one of the critical elements of the Banka Bio’s programme’s success is that principles of inclusion have been at the heart of its approach. Issues around access for marginalized populations, women, youth and the elderly, and those with disabilities, for example, are considered at each stage of planning and delivery of the project – as well as the ongoing maintenance of the bio-toilets themselves.
Initially, Banka Bio focused on delivering successes through basic but highly effective sanitation technology. As the company has achieved successes and grown, the company has sought to expand into more complex technologies. This has included other sanitation and wastewater treatment solutions, such as faecal sludge treatment plants, packaged sewage treatment plants, and other sanitation services. These more complex sanitation solutions show how success can lay the foundations to be able to reach a wider user-base, and ensure sanitation and water security for ever-larger numbers of people.
The experience of Banka Bio has shown how a bold commitment, backed by principles of inclusion, and aligned strongly with a massive government programme can boost the sector. Bank Bio has shown how the sector can be boosted through improved technology, realizing significant progress and achieving access to sanitation for many thousands of people – in an impressively short space of time.