3,75,76,324
the number of missing toilets in rural and urban India, according to a report collated by the Right to Sanitation Campaign based on government figures in the report titled ‘In Deep Shit’.

What is a ‘missing toilet’?
As the phrase suggests, it is a toilet that exists on paper but not on ground. So these missing toilets are the ones ‘built’ (as per government record) in the last 10 years as part of total sanitation campaign but were never constructed. Hundreds of community toilet complexes (CTCs) are either not built or are dysfunctional.

62.6 crore Indians still defecate in the open.

Missing toilets: fact sheet

• Only 31.9% households in rural India have access to sanitation.
• Half of India’s 1.2 billion people have no toilets at home.
• 67.3% rural people defecate in the open.
• 87% of toilets built in last 10 years as part of total sanitation campaign ‘missing’ in Madhya Pradesh.
• 78% toilets missing in Uttar Pradesh.
• 77% people from scheduled caste (SC) communities and 84% from scheduled tribe (ST) communities do not have toilets at home.
• Only 25,000 out of 6 million Indian villages are free from the practice of open defecation.
• 6.4% (or $53.8 billion) is the loss India’s GDP suffers due to lack of sanitation, according to World Bank estimates.
• India has more mobile phone subscribers (929 million) than toilets (300 million).
• India is lagging behind 11 years to meet the millennium development goal (set in 2000) by 2015
• India had resolved to reduce open defecation by 50% till 2015

And so does urban India

• 18% households do not have access to sanitation
• 51% households do not have access to toilets in on notified slums
• Hardly any government schemes for sanitation for urban poor, except integrated low cost sanitation scheme

States without proper sanitation facilities
Jharkhand: 77% homes
Odisha: 76.6% homes
Bihar: 75.8% homes

WHO SAYS WHAT
“Where have they gone and who is responsible for these missing toilets?”
Rajesh Upadhyay, executive director, National Confederation of Dalit Organisations

“At present, the government has a sanitation budget that is below 1 percent (of GDP). We demand an increase in the budget allocation for sanitation. It is also the responsibility of the government to provide sanitation and community toilet infrastructure that the poor can access.”

Rajni Tilak, convener of Rashtriya Dalit Mahila Andolan

“The budget allocated for sanitation is not being fully utilised but if the community asks for toilets the bureaucrats do nothing about it. There is also a shortage of sanitation workers so toilets are not cleaned and there is no electricity, water or provision for safety in community toilets.”
Praveen Naidu, advocacy & networking coordinator, WSH Project, Action India

“The government aims to make the country Nirmal Bharat by 2022. (But) there is a still a long way to go with only 30.7 percent rural households having access to toilets.”