Rural Sanitation

The Central Rural Sanitation Programme, which was started in 1986, was one of India’s first efforts to provide safe sanitation in rural areas. This programme focussed mainly on providing subsidies to people to construct sanitation facilities. However, a study done by the government in 1996-97 showed that it was more important to raise awareness about sanitation as a whole rather than to just provide subsidies for construction. This understanding marked the first shift in the programme. In 1999, a restructured Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) was initiated to create supply-led sanitation by promoting local sanitary marts and a range of technological options.

The rural sanitation campaign has the following as its objectives:

  • Accelerate sanitation coverage in rural areas.
  • Generate a push from the people to get facilities rather than expect the Government to do it (demand-led promotion).
  • Focus on intensive education and awareness campaigns to ensure that people understand the need for safe sanitation.
  • Take the scheme beyond rural households to rural schools and nursery schools. Here again, the emphasis was placed on promoting good hygiene practices.
  • Promote cost-effective and appropriate technologies.
  • Through all the above, improve the health and quality of life in rural areas.

The last modification of the scheme happened in 2012. It was restructured and renamed as the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan. With an intent to transform India to "Nirmal Bharat", the scheme's revised target for reaching total sanitation was changed from 2012 to 2022. 

Understanding rural sanitation dataState of rural sanitation in India - Progress and performance - Data visualisation tool by Arghyam

The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation publishes data related to the rural sanitation scheme on its website. The State of Sanitation Project is an effort to create simple tools that will demystify large datasets and also compare it to other relevant datasets.

View the State of sanitation in India - Data visualisation tool.

From outlays to outcomes: understanding the status of rural sanitation data

The census 2011 data on rural sanitation coverage was a reality check to the existing understanding that the government’s efforts at rural sanitation were moving rapidly towards achieving universal coverage. 

Below are some key lessons that emerged:

  • A difference in the total number of rural households as counted by the census 2011 and the government scheme – while in 2001, the difference was 0.14 lakhs, in 2011, the difference had grown to 884.03 lakhs.
  • A huge difference in the number of rural households with toilets. According to census 2011 data, only 30.7% of rural households had access to toilets in 2011. According to rural sanitation scheme data the number was considerably larger at 79.9%.

Some of these differences can be accounted for by the fact that the sanitation scheme achievement number was calculated on household numbers that were lesser than the 2011 household number. When corrected for this, the total achievement fell to 65.7 percent, which was still significantly higher than the number reported by the census 2011.

Based on these calculations India will have to spend anywhere between 9 – 19 times of its expenditure up to 2011 (Rs. 6140 crore) in order to achieve universal coverage of household toilets – which is just one component of the government scheme.

Download and read the entire study: From outlays to outcomes - The state of rural sanitation data in India - A report by Accountability Initiative and Arghyam (2013).

Download rural sanitation fact sheets for all states of India.

Accountability Initiative, Centre for Policy Research carried out the research for the State of Sanitation Project. Arghyam supported the effort.

About the State of Sanitation Project

The goal of the State of Sanitation project is to understand the success of the government’s rural sanitation scheme from the lenses of coverage, equity, accountability, efficiency and health.State of Sanitation

Open defecation in rural India remains a problem that perplexes policy makers and civil society alike. India has the largest number of people who practice open defecation (626 million) and the most number of child deaths due to poor water, sanitation and hygiene conditions compared to the rest of the world.

While access to toilets is by itself an important aspect that needs to be understood, it is not enough to reach the goal of total sanitation. Indeed, India’s rural sanitation scheme which was devised in 1986 and restructured in 2012 as the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA) acknowledges this. Its goal is not only universal toilet coverage by 2022, but also improving health and providing privacy and dignity to women, with the overall goal of improving the quality of life of people living in rural areas.

Aims of the State of Sanitation project: Multiple agencies have assessed the status of the rural sanitation programme and have quantified its benefits over time. However, there have been few attempts to provide an online, concurrent monitoring mechanism to track the status of both the implementation of the scheme and the larger benefits from the scheme.

To this end, the project will:The State of Sanitation Project is supported and run by Arghyam

  • Design monitoring tools – this will include:
      • Online tools that help demystify government data and provide overlays between multiple data sets relevant to sanitation. These tools will be opened up to civil society and provide context to the large data sets.
      • Participatory assessment tools that will attempt to qualify how the scheme is working and issues in implementation, usage and achievement of the rural sanitation scheme’s goals.
  • Identify best practices and gaps in implementation – this will include:
      • Ground verification of best practices and issues.
      • Focussed efforts to document good practices and problems.

For more queries or feedback, please contact us.

Featured Articles
December 13, 2022 WaterAid India’s partnership with USAID and Gap Inc. benefits 2400 villages across 7 districts of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra

WaterAid has focused on establishing community-led water quality monitoring & surveillance (Image: Anil Gulati/India Water Portal Flickr)
October 15, 2022 Synthesis of water, sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) spatial pattern in rural India: an integrated interpretation of WaSH practices
People in rural areas lack potable water, and use unsafe sanitation and hygiene facilities (Image: Sebastian Dahl)
October 4, 2021 Lessons from the Swachh Bharat Mission experience
Pop culture icons like Gabbar Singh are painted on the walls of a toilet complex in New Delhi (Image: Project Raahat, Enactus)
May 18, 2021 Income loss top concern for rural communities, says study
Must have protocols for timely action and outreach in times of need (Image: DMD, Government of Bihar)
May 11, 2021 Bathing spaces and not toilets alone, aid women in maintaining health and hygiene. It is time the Swachh Bharat Mission pays attention to bathing spaces as well!
A temperory bathing space with no water and privacy in a fishing village in Tamil Nadu (Image Source: India Water Portal)
Sanitation interventions: A threat to drinking water supplies in rural India?
A study argues that increasing faecal contamination of groundwater-derived potable supplies is inevitable as the uptake of on-site sanitation intensifies in India. Posted on 03 Jan, 2016 11:05 PM

Inadequate separation of excreta from human contact can lead to a number of health problems. This is a cause for concern in India because as many as 600 million

Sanitation and groundwater contamination (Source: Sourabh Phadke)
Right to sanitation now a distinct human right
Posted on 28 Dec, 2015 12:13 PM
Right to sanitation recognised as a distinct human right by the United Nations
In a landmark resolution hailed by millions across the globe, the United Nations General Assembly has recognized the right to sanitation as a distinct human right alongsid
Swachh Bharat receives a $1.5 billion boost from the World Bank
Posted on 21 Dec, 2015 11:43 AM
The World Bank approves $1.5 billion loan to boost the Swachh Bharat Mission
The World Bank's International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) has approved a $1.5 billion loan to boost th
Understanding the connect between caste and sanitation
De-linking the relationship between the two and not acknowledging the contribution of sanitation workers can limit the goal of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan to clean India and achieve total sanitation. Posted on 05 Dec, 2015 11:14 PM

Of the one billion people defecating out in the open globally, 66% live in India of which as high as 92% live in rural areas.

Factors affecting sanitation outcomes (Source: Sourabh Phadke)
WASH Educators Training (WET 2016) by VIKSAT
The training is directed towards creating and nurturing a cadre of young educators for better understanding of water and WASH issues.
Posted on 03 Dec, 2015 02:51 PM

About WET 2016

www.viksat.org
52 lakh individual household toilets to come up over the next four years in Andhra Pradesh
Posted on 30 Nov, 2015 09:40 AM
Andhra Pradesh to construct 52 lakh individual household toilets over the next four years
The Andhra Pradesh government has set itself a target of constructing 52 lakh individual household latrines across
Country's first faecal sludge treatment plant is now active in Devanahalli
Posted on 23 Nov, 2015 05:42 PM
Devanahalli's World Toilet Day present: The country's first faecal sludge treatment plant to become operational on November 19
Devanahalli near Bengaluru became the first town in the country to get a faecal sludge treatment plant for th
Why do people choose to defecate in the open than use toilets in rural coastal Odisha?
Maybe beliefs that faeces were impure also caused people to look at the practice of containing faeces in the latrine pit in the house as a ‘sin’ is one reason but there are so many others. Posted on 19 Nov, 2015 04:45 PM

Of the one billion defecating in the open globally 66% live in India, of which 92% live in rural areas. Despite concerted government efforts for the last three decades to promote sanitation, India continues to lag behind in terms of access to basic sanitation facilities.

Sociocultural factors affecting toilet use (Source: Sourabh Phadke)
Green patch today, garbage dump tomorrow: DDA clears Dwarka landfill proposal
Posted on 15 Nov, 2015 11:13 PM
Delhi Development Authority decides to handover two green spaces for landfill site in Dwarka
The DDA has cleared a proposal to modify land-use and set aside green spaces for an upcoming landfill in Dwarka amidst stiff opposition from lo
Scarcity amidst plenty: Kerala's drinking water paradox
Kerala is blessed with high rainfall as well as plenty of natural water sources, but it has the lowest per capita share of freshwater resources in the country. Posted on 14 Nov, 2015 02:48 PM

Kerala, flanked on the west by the Arabian Sea and on the east by the Western Ghats is bestowed with enviable natural resources. It has 44 rivers spanning its lush green landscape and rainfall that averages as high as 3000 mm a year.

The Karamana river in Thiruvanathapuram, Kerala (Source: India Water Portal)
×