Open Defecation: People go for open defecation in the morning on the banks of river Ganga in Prayagraj in 2019. Millions of Indians, especially in rural areas, continue to practice open defecation despite efforts to encourage people to change their minds. Habits. , Photo Credit: Rajesh Kumar Singh
Yet another recently released government survey in 2019 has questioned the central government’s claim that all Indian villages are open-defecation free (ODF). Four Government Survey / Report The latest Multiple Indicator Surveys (MIS), including those released just before or after the announcement, have not only disputed the ODF status of most states, but also shown poor sanitation levels in many of them.
The three old surveys that disputed the ODF status were the National Statistical Office (NSO) survey from October 2018, the National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey (NARSS) of 2019-20 and the National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5) 2019. -21.
For example, villages in Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu were declared 100% ODF by October 2018, according to data from the Swachh Bharat Mission, Gramin (SBMG) portal. However, according to NSO data, only 71% and 62.8% of rural households in Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, respectively, had access to some form of toilet (own, shared, public) in the same month. SBMG data claimed that over 99% of rural households in 24 states/UTs had individual household toilets as of March 2019, while NARSS data recorded six months later showed that in 24 states/UTs, Less than 90% of rural households had access to their own toilets. According to SBMG data, 99.4% of rural households in Gujarat had individual toilets as of March 2019. However, in the second half of 2019, only 63.3% of the population in rural households in Gujarat used individual toilets, according to NFHS data.
According to the MIS released in March this year, between January 2020 and August 2021, of 21.3% rural households, a majority said they did not have access to any type of toilet (own, shared, public). The MIS survey rejecting the ODF claim is the fourth in the last five years.
map 1 The MIS shows the percentage of rural households in which a majority of members reported access to some type of toilet, according to the survey. For example, in Kerala, 100% said they had access, while only 74.2% in Uttar Pradesh had such access.
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Notably, while the target of Swachh Bharat Gramin Phase-I was yet to be achieved, the government unveiled Phase-II, which expanded toilet coverage in schools/anganwadis, and provided solid/liquid sanitation facilities in all villages. There should be a waste management system. Villages meeting these criteria were named as ODF-plus villages. Due to the clubbing of targets, the share of rural households with toilet access (the target for Phase-I) was no longer tracked separately. Also, the indicators relating to Phase-I were removed from the dashboard. map 2 Shows the share of such ODF-plus villages as on April 1, 2022. Overall only 8% of the villages in India had achieved ODF-Plus status. Tamil Nadu’s share was more than 91%. Interestingly, just a year ago, according to the MIS survey, only 72.4% of rural households in Tamil Nadu had some form of toilet.
The share of ODF-plus villages in India to increase to 34% by March 12, 2023. Shown in state-wise share map 3 ,
While the SBMG dashboard does not track toilet access separately, the Swachh Survekshan Rural Survey (December 2021-April 2022) lists the percentage of households with access to toilets (Map 4), It concluded that in 28 states, the share of such households crossed 90% and the India average was 95%, a stark contrast to the MIS survey data conducted six months earlier.
vignesh.r@thehindu.co.in
Source: Multiple Indicator Survey, Swachh Bharat Gramin Dashboard, Swachh Survekshan Gramin Survey
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