Open defecation in India
Open defecation was 11% from 2022 in India.[1] 'Open defecation free' (ODF) is a term used by the Indian government to describe communities that have shifted to using toilets instead of open defecation.[2] In India even if toilets are available, behavior change efforts may still be needed to promote the use of toilets.[3] Rural areas in India are more likely to open defecate outside than urban areas.[4] In India, the number had decreased by 62% (73% in 2000 to 11% in 2022)[5] but despite the progress, India still had the largest number of people practicing open defecation[6]
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What is Open defecation?
History
A formal sanitation programme was first launched in India in 1954, followed by Central Rural Sanitation Programme in 1986, Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) in 1999 and Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan in 2012. Phase 1 of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) lasted until 2 October 2019, and Phase 2 is being implemented between 2020–21 and 2024–25 to reinforce the achievements of Phase 1.
Initiated by the Government of India, the mission aimed to achieve an "open-defecation free" (ODF) India by 2 October 2019, the 150th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi through construction of toilets.[7] According to government data, approximately 90 million toilets were constructed during this period. The objectives of the first phase of the mission also included eradication of manual scavenging, generating awareness and bringing about a behaviour changeregarding sanitation practices, and augmentation of capacity at the local level.
The second phase of the mission aims to sustain the open defecation-free status and improve the management of solid and liquid waste, while also working to improve the lives of sanitation workers. The mission is aimed at progressing towards target 6.2 of the Sustainable Development Goals Number 6 established by the United Nations in 2015.
The campaign's official name is in Hindi. In English, it translates to "Clean India Mission". The campaign was officially launched on 2 October 2014 at Rajghat, New Delhi by the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi. It is India's largest cleanliness mission to date with three million government employees, students and citizens from all parts of India participating in 4,043 cities, towns, and rural communities. At a rally in Champaran, the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi called the campaign Satyagrah se Swachhagrah in reference to Gandhi's Champaran Satyagraha launched on 10 April 1916. The mission was split into two: rural and urban. In rural areas "SBM - Gramin" was financed and monitored through the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (since converted to the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation under the Ministry of Jal Shakti) whereas "SBM - urban" was overseen by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. The rural division has a five-tier mechanism: central, state, district, block panchayat, and gram panchayat.[8]
From 2014 to 2020, the government of India constructed over 100 million household toilets and, as a result, declared more than 600,000 villages as free of open defecation[9], although some Indians especially in rural areas choose to not use them.[10] The campaign was criticized for using coercive approaches to force people to use toilets. Some people were stopped from defecating in open.[11] For the period spanning 2015–2020, SBM averaged an annual budget of approximately 1.25 billion USD[9]
In 2022, approximately 157 million people in India, representing about 11% of the total population, were practicing open defecation.[1] This figure included 17% of the rural population (about 154 million) and 0.5% of the urban population (approximately 2.8 million). In comparison, in 2000, around 776 million people, or 73% of the total population, practiced open defecation, including 91% of the rural population (around 701 million) and 25.8% of the urban population (around 75 million), the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) reported. Although there has been significant progress, India still had the largest number of people practicing open defecation, followed by Nigeria and Ethiopia.[6]
Timeline
Percentage of open defecation in india every year[12]
2000: 73.3%
2001: 70.4%
2002: 67.5%
2003: 64.5%
2004: 61.6%
2005: 58.7%
2006: 55.8%
2007: 52.9%
2008: 50.1%
2009: 47.2%
2010: 44.4%
2011: 41.5%
2012: 38.7%
2013: 35.9%
2014: 33.1%
2015: 30.4%
2016: 27.6%
2017: 24.8%
2018: 22%
2019: 19.2%
2020: 16.5%
2021: 13.8%
2022: 11.1%
See also
Water supply and sanitation in India
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "World Bank Open Data". World Bank Open Data. Retrieved 2025-09-23.
- ↑ Ahuja, Aastha. "Swachh Guide: What Is ODF? | Swachh Guide". swachhindia.ndtv.com. Archived from the original on 2024-06-19. Retrieved 2025-09-23. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Why India's sanitation crisis needs more than toilets". BBC News. 2014-10-06. Retrieved 2025-09-23.
- ↑ "India: The Problem of Open Defecation". World Food Prize Michigan Youth Institute. 2017-08-16. Retrieved 2025-09-23.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Share of people practicing open defecation". Our World in Data. Retrieved 2025-09-24.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "World Toilet Day: 420 million people are defecating outdoors". World Bank Blogs. Retrieved 2025-09-24.
- ↑ "ICAR - National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases". nihsad.nic.in. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
- ↑ "ICAR - National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases". nihsad.nic.in. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Chakrabarti, Suman; Gune, Soyra; Bruckner, Tim A.; Strominger, Julie; Singh, Parvati (2024-09-02). "Toilet construction under the Swachh Bharat Mission and infant mortality in India". Scientific Reports. 14 (1): 20340. Bibcode:2024NatSR..1420340C. doi:10.1038/s41598-024-71268-8. ISSN 2045-2322. PMID 39223201 Check
|pmid=value (help). - ↑ Coffey, Diane; Gupta, Aashish; Hathi, Payal; Spears, Dean; Srivastav, Nikhil; Vyas, Sangita (2017-01-07). "Understanding Open Defecation in Rural India: Untouchability, Pollution, and Latrine Pits". Economic and Political Weekly. 52 (1): 59–66. ISSN 0012-9976. PMC 10798809 Check
|pmc=value (help). PMID 38249816 Check|pmid=value (help). - ↑ "Open defecation in India: forcing people to stop is not the solution". The Guardian. 2016-11-18. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
- ↑ "Share of people practicing open defecation". Our World in Data. Retrieved 2025-09-22.
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