Only 13% villages have community toilets

The survey also found that in rural areas, 45.3% of households reported to having sanitary toilets, while in urban areas, the comparable estimate was 88.8%

Only 13.1 per cent villages surveyed were found to have community toilets, according to a new survey carried out by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO). Of these toilets, 82.1 per cent were being used for defecation or washing purpose. In urban areas, only 42 per cent wards surveyed were found to have community/public toilets.

The Rapid Survey on Swachhta Status, conducted by NSSO during May-June 2015, covered 3,788 villages and 2,907 urban blocks. It surveyed 73,176 households in rural India and 41,538 in urban India.

Cleaning these toilets continues to pose a problem. The survey finds that in 22.6 per cent of the villages, community toilets were not being cleaned. By comparison, in only 8.6 per cent wards of cities, toilets were not being cleaned by anyone.

In rural areas, the toilets were cleaned either by people employed by the panchayat or the task was taken up by the residents themselves. In urban areas, in 73 per cent of the wards, these toilets were cleaned by people employed by the local municipal body while the balance was cleaned by persons employed by the residents' welfare association.

The survey also found that in rural areas, 45.3 per cent of households reported to having sanitary toilets, while in urban areas, the comparable estimate was 88.8 per cent.

In rural areas, roughly half the households reported to have kept their garbage at a specified place outside their own house, while a fourth disposed of the garbage in the nearby agriculture field. The remaining either kept it at a common place outside the house or disposed of it at biogas plants or manure pits.

In urban areas, 64.2 per cent wards had a dumping place for solid waste. Roughly half these wards were reported to have cleaned these places every day, while a little more than a third carried out cleaning on a weekly basis. In five per cent of these wards the solid waste dumping place was not cleaned.