How Swachh Bharat Mission's pit toilets failed to help flood-prone areas

Flood-prone areas get twin-pit toilets, not Ecosans, all to meet Swachh Bharat Mission targets

“Earlier, we used to wade through water to go looking for a dry spot to relieve ourselves. It is not easy to do so when the whole area is flooded. This new dry toilet has made things very easy,” said Chatthi Devi in Bishambhurpur, a village in the Gandak river floodplains of north Bihar’s Paschim Champaran district.

Chatthi Devi was referring to a revolutionary urine-diverting dry toilet, popularly called ‘Ecosan’, short for “ecological sanitation”.

The people of Bishambhurpur mostly work on small farms or migrate to distant Punjab for work. The village records neck-deep water for at least