Toilets at railways stations are the dirtiest: Survey

Close to 90 percent Indian travellers feel that railway stations across the country have the dirtiest toilets and need major improvement, a survey ahead of World Toilet Day has revealed.

Conducted by travel portal HolidayIQ.com, the survey said 88.31 percent of travellers were of the view that toilets at railway stations in the country need major improvement, followed closely by toilets at public places in cities (87.9 percent) and those at religious, heritage and tourist sites (79.17 percent).

Airports had the cleanest toilets, with only 11.02 percent of the respondents feeling the need to improve them.

"Fifty-nine percent of the people said none of the cities around the country had clean public toilets, while 49 percent of them admitted to changing their travel plans -- from train to flight or bus because of the unhygienic toilets," the survey said.

"Most people in India actually choose their travel destinations based on the restroom experience they can expect. This is especially true for women, and even truer for mothers who shop or travel with small children," it said.

As far as the overall 'dirtiness quotient' was concerned, Kolkata topped the chart with 74 percent of the people terming it the dirtiest city, followed closely by Mumbai (72 percent) and Chennai (71 percent).

Hyderabad scored the lowest at 31 percent.

The survey said India direly needed a toilet revolution if it wanted to bring in tourism dollars.

The United Nations has dedicated Nov 19 as World Toilet Day to focus on the critical health need for 2.5 billion people in developing countries including India - for sanitary toilet conditions.

Of the one billion people in the world who have no toilet, India accounts for nearly 600 million.