Abstract

A State-level Stakeholders’ Consultation was organised in November 2015 in Chennai to discuss the need for improvements along the urban sanitation value chain in Tamil Nadu. Representatives from the Municipal Administration and Water Supply (MAWS) department, delegates from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the staff members from Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), and consortium partners such as Gramalaya, Keystone Foundation and CDD Society participated in the workshop. The workshop discussed ideas to achieve the overall objective of the Tamil Nadu Sanitation Mission and the possibility of demonstrating innovations in two urban locations. As a result of this consultation, the Tamil Nadu Urban Sanitation Support Programme (TNUSSP) was launched to implement Fecal Sludge Management (FSM) initiatives in two urban locations and use the learnings from these two locations to scale-up and implement FSM in urban areas across the State.