Vinod C. Dixit
Methods to assess household excreta disposal practices are critical for informing public health outcomes of efforts to improve sanitation. It is important as leaving human waste in natural areas can result in contaminated water supplies and soils. 60% of the “global total” who do not have access to toilets live in India, and hence are forced to defecate in the open. According to UNICEF and WHO report, 949 million in 2010 worldwide, vast majority of people practising open defecation live in rural areas. Our Indian cities, which are grossly underprovided in terms of public toilets, have not shown any urgency to improve the situation. Even the existing ones are poorly maintained, badly located and hardly used. This persisting neglect has led to woeful sanitary conditions.
Though the number of rural people practising open defecation has reduced by 234 million in 2010 than in 1990, “those that continue to do so tend to be concentrated in a few countries, including India. This shows there is still a traditional thought that the presence of toilets in the compound makes the later impure. Providing toilets to the 15 million urban households that do not have them is a priority. Equally important is to provide toilets in public places. They are an integral part of the civic amenities and those who actively use the city need them.
Only education and awareness can do something. Educated or uneducated, people in rural areas, for want of indoor plumbing use open space for defecating. There are people who think that open defecation is more hygienic and having an indoor toilet is dirty and filthy. We need a grassroot campaign on how many diseases can be avoided by basic cleanliness and how spending on toilets is as important as developing other infrastructure.
Many toilets look fancy from outside but are not well-maintained. In many places, they are not cleaned at regular intervals. Some do not even have regular water supply despite many being pay-and-use toilets.
Public toilets in most of the cities are notorious for being unattractive places, poorly maintained and filthy at worst, and even at best despoiled with paan stains and graffiti.
We don’t need to build new temples, mosques, churches, gurudwaras, etc. Public toilets with good water facility are the need of the hour. Bringing about a change in mindset is the paramount need.
