Promoting Portable Sanitation in India

Rajeev Kher utilizes American cleanliness standards and top industry technology to encourage portable restroom usage in a new frontier

Rajeev Kher, 28, is on a quest to bring sanitation standards to his native India. And that’s quite a challenge when you realize that 90 percent of Indians living outside major cities still relieve themselves in the open.

Kher first saw portable restrooms being used while working in Canada in 1997. He felt introducing portable sanitation was essential for India, which was — and still is — plagued by health problems related to open defecation in poor settlements and urban slums. He knew that until basic sanitation issues were solved, there could be no significant residential or commercial development in his homeland.

So, in 1999, he established a portable sanitation company in India, Shramik Sanitation Systems/3S. Later that year, he sold the brand to Saraplast Pvt. Ltd. As managing director, Kher holds 65 percent of the shares in this merged company, headquartered about 60 miles southeast of Mumbai (Bombay).

Efforts to raise standards of portable sanitation brought Kher to the 2010 Pumper & Cleaner Environmental Expo International in Louisville, where he learned about the latest industry technologies. Pumper caught up with Kher after his Expo visit to find out how he markets portable sanitation on a new frontier for the industry.

Pumper:

What’s the sanitation challenge in India?

Kher:

In all Indian cities, people do use toilets and there are adequate facilities in private homes. The problem is a lack of public sanitation. It’s exacerbated by the large migration of rural populations that brings millions of people to the cities, which do not have the infrastructure to handle this influx. As a result, there are problems with water, sanitation, power, etc. We saw that, from a sanitation standpoint, India was an untapped, disorganized market.

Pumper:

What is your mission?

Kher:

We wish to ensure that each Indian has access to a clean restroom, and to provide our cleaning technicians with a sense of dignity about their work, which people in the sanitation business currently lack. This is our main challenge. Not only are we looking at portable restrooms, but providing sanitation to everyone. We use the profits generated from our paying work to provide portables in the slums, as well as at public events. The larger aim is to promote, build and service permanent hygienic facilities in homes, businesses and institutions.

Pumper:

How many individual restrooms do you have, and how many vacuum trucks do you use?

Kher:

We manage about 2,400 restrooms, doing about 12,000 services per week using around 30 service trucks. This includes service to units we own and others we have sold, as well as septic tanks and bathrooms.

Pumper:

Your Web site refers to units as “toilet cabins,” and you offer them in Western and Indian style. What’s the difference?

Kher:

The Western cabins have a Western-style commode and the Indian style is the squat type with no commode. In India, the majority of people we cater to — 90 percent of our restrooms are used by migrant labor and construction workers — primarily prefer the Indian squat style unit, also called Turkish toilets. Another difference is that in India, toilet paper is not used much. Most people use water to wash themselves when they’re finished.

Pumper:

Does Shramik operate on the same rental model as its counterparts in the United States?

Kher:

The system pretty much works the same, but we don’t call it rental. It is a pure service model. The unit is installed for free, and we charge for the cleaning and evacuation of waste. We do make some profit due to our volume of customers. However, our aim is not just profit, it is achieving what we call “Total Sanitation” — organizational growth for the people and the company, for society.

Pumper:

How did you get your first construction customer, and how much do you charge for the service?

Kher:

I had to convince a site manager to use my restroom and had to give complimentary service for a month or so. At the end of the period when the time to pick up the restrooms came, the customer — seeing the tangible benefits of the service — agreed to pay. He realized the units were responsible for a good, clean and hygienic facility. Also, most builders and promoters did realize that the dignity of workers had been neglected and this was a major area of concern. They realized that these most basic of facilities improved worker morale and, above all, saved a lot of time and headaches, since the cleaning responsibility was completely outsourced to us.

We then mutually arrived at a price and fixed it as a standard price for all construction sites in the vicinity. Our monthly charge varies from location to location, as it depends upon several factors such as distance from the sewage treatment plant, number of units, type of client and other factors.

Pumper:

Are you concerned about competitors moving in, now that you’ve paved the way?

Kher:

No, I welcome it. The portables opportunity in India is so big that 10-20 large portable sanitation companies can easily operate without treading on each other’s toes. Furthermore, competition is complimentary to the business. It would help bring in regulation and increase awareness more rapidly than a single organization can. It would set better standards. We are on the lookout for tie-ins and joint ventures with international organizations, to share local knowledge to build the portable sanitation sector in India.

Pumper:

Many Westerners believe developing countries use outmoded, polluting technologies. But you talk about modern, sustainable practices. Explain.

Kher:

What the Western world believes was true a decade ago, but the situation is rapidly changing. We are increasingly seeing the government, corporations and even end users becoming environmentally conscious.

At Saraplast, we use the most modern techniques, on par with the Western world. Our entire business voluntarily follows guidelines prescribed by the PSAI (Portable Sanitation Association International) in our country where there are no regulations on portable sanitation. We have always been looking at green and recyclable business models that have zero negative impact on the environment. All our restrooms are built from recyclable materials, the sanitary concentrate we use is a bio-friendly additive, and all the waste we collect is disposed of at a sewage treatment plant.

As we grow and develop substantial waste collection, we have plans to set up a biogas facility to generate power and create carbon credits. All our trucks have sophisticated GPS and monitoring systems, and our restrooms have RFID (Radio Frequency Identification). All of these technologies allow us to plan and execute the most efficient service routes and processes and give us the controls and efficiency needed for better documentation and safety.

Pumper:

What kind of marketing and promotion are used to generate new business in a country where people don’t understand the portable restroom concept?

Kher:

Our sales teams go to construction sites where they show groups of temporary workers the value of good sanitation using graphic flip charts, since people are mostly illiterate and understand through pictures. Our promotion activities create a demand for our services from the laborers. We also do direct marketing in slums, talking to women and young children about the benefits of using restrooms and the disadvantages of defecating in the open. We talk to tourism departments about how they'd attract more tourists if they could provide clean sanitation facilities that are pleasant to use, and which visitors from most other countries expect.

Pumper:

What’s your growth plan for the next 3-5 years?

Kher:

We wish to provide more than a million services per week catering to slums, construction sites, disaster management, street (pay-for-use units), tourism and school sanitation. We’re also moving into waste management, including disposal and treatment of waste to form energy. We’ll even be developing low-cost package treatment plants to offer a Total Sanitation solution.



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