Only 71% of rural households had access to toilets

The latest National Statistical Office (NSO) survey on sanitation debunked the claims of an open defecation-free or ODF India made by the Centre’s flagship Swachh Bharat scheme, although it did record great progress in toilet access and use in rural areas since the previous survey.

The results of the survey, released on Saturday, showed that about 71% of rural households had access to toilets at a time when the Centre was claiming 95% had access. On October 2, 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that the whole country was open defecation-free with complete access to toilets.

The survey was carried out between July and December 2018, with a reference date of October 1. Large States which had been declared open defecation-free — that is, 100% access to toilets and 100% usage — even before the survey began included Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. Others which were declared open defecation-free during the survey included Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

According to the National Statistical Office, almost 42% of the rural households in Jharkhand had no access to a toilet at that time. In Tamil Nadu, the gap was 37%, followed by 34% in Rajasthan.

Significant gaps

In Gujarat, which was one of the earliest States declared open defecation-free, back in October 2017, almost a quarter of all rural households had no toilet access, the National Statistical Office data showed. The other major States listed also had significant gaps: Karnataka (30%), Madhya Pradesh (29%), Andhra Pradesh (22%) and Maharashtra (22%).

In the first week of October 2018, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Grameen) said 25 States and Union Territories had been declared open defecation-free, while toilet access across the country touched 95%. In reality, the National Statistical Office said 28.7% of rural households had no toilet access at the time.

With regard to this data, the National Statistical Office noted, “There may be respondent bias in the reporting of access to latrine as question on benefits received by the households from government schemes was asked prior to the question on access of households to latrine.”

Not up to the hype

The 71% access to toilets may not have lived up to Swachh Bharat hype, but it was still a significant improvement over the situation during the last survey period in 2012, when only 40% of the rural households had access to toilets.