NEW DELHI: Most Indians believe the condition of public toilets is worse and impaired, and it makes them continue to defecate in the open, according to a survey by the social media platform LocalCircles.
India marks nine years of the Swachh Bharat Mission on Gandhi Jayanti. The Central government pledged to make the country Open Defecation Free (ODF) by 2019 while launching the scheme in 2014. However, the poor management of public toilets defeated the sole objective of the mission, according to the survey.
The survey shows that around 58 per cent of Indians believe that public toilets constructed under the mission in markets, at religious sites, tourist hubs, railway stations, bus terminals and hospitals are in bad condition. Over one-fourth of Indians “went in but came out without using public toilets,” said the survey, adding, “Only 18 per cent of Indians use free public toilets.”
Among those who use public toilets, only 10 per cent find them usable. Most urban Indians prefer to use toilets located in commercial complexes. LocalCircles conducted the survey in 340 districts across the country, which included Tier-1, 2, and 3 cities and towns with over 39,000 respondents. Recently, the Delhi High Court had rapped the Central and Delhi governments, besides civic authorities, on the poor condition of public toilets. The court had said that the cleanliness of public toilets is fundamental, along with the availability of clean water and power.
Under the Swachh Bharat Mission, the Modi government provided funds to various urban local bodies on a cost-sharing basis and constructed 6.36 lakh public toilets against the target of around 5 lakh. Till now, 4,355 urban local bodies have been declared ODF, while 3,547 are ODF+ and 1,191 are ODF++. The ODF categorisation is based on the availability of water, maintenance, hygiene, and sludge and septage management.
The survey reveals that hardly 3 per cent find free public toilets usable, whereas the majority (68 per cent) of urban Indians prefer visiting a commercial establishment (restaurant, hotel, petrol pump, etc). Moreover, the survey finds only 15 per cent of the public find usable toilets at petrol pumps. The survey found that 53 per cent of Indians feel the public toilets are either barely functional or in ‘terrible’ state and 12 per cent found them “so bad, that we went in, but came out without using it”.
Sachin Taparia, founder of LocalCircles, who led the survey, said that the government should take these findings to change its policy to improve public toilets. “The need of the hour is to prioritise maintenance of existing public toilets over building newer public toilets,” said Taparia. He said these findings should serve as an eye-opener for the Swachh Bharat Mission as well as urban local bodies, that maintain public toilets.