March 31, 2023

Ensuring access to toilets for India’s rural communities

topic:	Health and Sanitation
located:	India
editor:	Hanan Zaffar

Despite the Indian government’s claim in 2019 of having eradicated open defecation, 21 percent of rural households in the country still lack access to toilets. While 97.1 percent of urban households reported that the majority of household members had access to latrines, 21.3 percent of rural Indians have never used one. For these families in general and the women in particular, daily life is a constant struggle to maintain dignity, privacy and health.

With no access to private toilets, women are forced to find isolated places to relieve themselves, often waiting until after dusk or before dawn to find privacy. This unfortunate setup forces women to leave aside their sense of dignity to fulfil one of the most basic human needs.

While this situation is in itself harsh, uncomfortable and embarrassing, it becomes worse in rural India where women are required to stay indoors, away from the public eye, since exposure to the public is not always considered safe for them. There have been numerous cases where women, going out to relieve themselves, have faced sexual assault and rape. It is not uncommon for men, on the other hand, to relieve themselves on the side of the road without attracting attention.

The lack of toilets also poses significant health risks, as open defecation contributes to the spread of diseases like cholera, typhoid and diarrhoea. Relieving in the open has adverse health effects not only on the individual but on the people living in the vicinity as well, as these diseases can be fatal to children and the elderly.

Poverty prevents these families from having access to personal toilets since their installation cost is often unaffordable to people living below the poverty line. In some cases, people have become so habituated to using open spaces and are unaware of the dangers of open defecation.

Families in these conditions require the help of the government or assistance from an NGO.  The state on its part has subsidised the making of toilets in recent times, while the programme Swach Bharat Abhiyan or Clean India Initiative, which aims to make India completely free from open defecation by constructing toilets across the country, has been fairly successful in providing facilities to communities in need.

To that end, the government has filled some gaps. According to a government report, 100 million household toilets have been constructed in the country from 2014 to 2019. At the same time, there are prominent NGOs like the Swades Foundation which, among other endeavours, have been working towards building toilets in areas where they are unavailable. To date, the NGO on its own has constructed over 25,000 toilets across the country.

More efforts like these are needed to ensure that people all over India are able to fulfil their biological needs in dignified, healthy and humane ways.

Image by Konstantin Volke 

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