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Households without toilets in India, 2001-11. Source: The Times of India

Households without Latrines: India

Stats affirm PM's stress on toilets

TIMES INSIGHT GROUP

The Times of India Aug 16 2014

53% Of All Indian Households Do Not Have Latrines, Figure 69% In Villages

Prime Minister Narendra Modi pointed out how women often have to wait for the cover of darkness to go out to defecate or urinate because they don't have toilets at home. He also pointed out that the absence of separate toilets for girls was one of the factors behind their dropping out of school. So exactly how bad is the situation on the ground? The Times of India checked out the official numbers and they paint a grim picture.

Data from census 2011 shows that over 53% of all Indian households do not have a latrine within their premises.

In the rural areas, this figure is as high as 69.3%, that is more than two-thirds, and even in urban areas it is a substantial 18.6% or nearly one in every five.

These all-India figures do not quite reveal the full hor ror. There are states where the situation in much worse. Of the nine states in which over half the households don't have a latrine at home, there are four -Jharkhand (78%), Odisha (78%), Bihar (76.9%) and Chhattisgarh (75.4%) -in which three-quarters or more of homes have no latrines. But it isn't just these `backward' states where the picture is so grim. Even in Tamil Nadu (51.7%) and Andhra Pradesh (50.4%) a majority of homes lack latrines.

The figure for the PM's own home state, Gujarat, is only a little better at 42.7%.

In the rural areas, there are nine states in which over three-fourths of homes do not have a latrine. While these, not surprisingly include some of the states mentioned earlier, what might come as a shock is that in Tamil Nadu 76.8% of homes do not have latrines on the premises. In Gujarat, that's true of 67% or over twothirds of homes.

The situation in terms of schools having separate toi lets for girls is distinctly better, with the latest data from the District Information System for Education (DISE) showing that in 2013-14, only 8.4% of all schools did not have functional ones. However, here too some states are quite worse off. All told, there are 12 states in which 10% or more of schools do not have functional girls' toilets. These include small north-eastern states but they also have among them big states like Andhra Pradesh (28.3% with no functional girls' toilet), Odisha (24.8%), Bihar (17.5%) and West Bengal (15.2%).

Toilets in schools

Abysmal student-toilet ratio in schools

Shreya Roychowdhury The Times of India Oct 23 2014

Number of toilets in schools, state-wise; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India

DoE Survey Finds Dearth Of Girls’ Toilets In 156 Schools, Boys’ Facilities In 64 Institutions

The Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya at Pooth Kalan, northwest Delhi, has one toilet seat for every 1,669 girls enrolled and Government Girls’ Senior Secondary, Burari, has one for every 944.

The Urdu-medium SKV at Jafrabad, Zeenat Mahal, has one boys’ toilet (or urinal) for every 615 boys. The Directo rate of Education has been taking stock of the loo situation in the schools under it and has drawn up a list of schools where the ratio of students to toilets is over 140—there is a shortage of boys’ toilets in 64 schools and girls’ in 156.

“We have been looking at the number of toilets needed and whether the schools have space for new ones,” says Padmini Singla, director, education. The survey was prompted by offers to build and maintain toilets from private corporations brought on board by the ministry of human resource development for its newly launched Swachh Vidyalaya Abhiyan.

“A few of them approached us apart from the Confederation of Indian Industry. We’ll have to first find out if there’s space available for toilet blocks.” Singla adds that the department, while generally aiming for a toilet per 100 students, considered 140 as the maximum ratio for the purposes of the survey.

Data collated from the District Information System for Education (DISE) shows that Delhi is one of four states union territories to have toilets in all schools, but the number of toilets per school is woefully low; going by the department's own records, enrolment has been increas ing by a lakh every year. The student-toilet ratio exceeds 200 in 29 boys' and 100 girls' schools. “The toilets are nowhere near the number you actually need. With so many kids using a single toilet, they are almost never clean,“ says Saurabh Sharma, foundermember of a Delhi education NGO, JOSH, which also studies government schools' levels of compliance with the Right to Education Act.

Encouraged by the Prime Minister's emphasis on toilets in his Independence Day speech, JOSH got about 2,500 kids and parents, all from the Trilokpuri area of east Delhi, to sign an appeal to the PM for their school loos to be cleaned up; copies were forwarded to MHRD, the local MP and DOE. “The toilets were cleaned and bins and tissue paper appeared. The MP, Ma heish Girri, had even asked for photographs of cleaned toilets. But this can't be a onetime exercise,“ says Sharma, “There are still girls who drop out because school toilets aren't functional.“

“Availability of toilets is still an issue across the country and affects girls' participation. There are still over two lakh schools without one,“ observes R Govinda, vice-chancellor, National University for Educational Planning and Administration. But, he doesn't believe total dependence on companies' CSR funds is the answer.“The government will also have to gear up and invest,“ he explains, “The programme has helped raise awareness and with the cooperation of corporations, hopefully some norms will be established.“