Notes from the Field

Field activities in the month of July were focused towards completing the census data collection in the remaining 10 community toilet locations in Bhubaneswar. J-PAL has finished first round of data collection is 5 sites with a completion rate of more than 80%, and will revisit these sites to improve the completion rate and start data collection in the remaining sites.

The Principal Investigator on the Urban Sanitation Project, Prof. Mushfiq Mobarak, Associate Professor at the Yale School of Management, visited the project in July. He presented the Software and Research aspects of the Urban Sanitation project to the Additional Chief Secretary, Mr Srinivas. The presentation led to a constructive dialogue on the practical challenges to keep in mind while implementing the research methodology.

The team has been working on the management frameworks for community and private management models, and has also been finalizing the model for the estimating pricing of the toilet services.

In August, J-PAL will focus on preparedness for the Baseline Survey, including completing the remaining census data collection activities in Bhubaneswar. The pricing model and management frameworks for community toilets will also be detailed out.