As India marks nine years of Swachh Bharat Mission today (Gandhi Jayanti, October 2, 2023), 42% urban citizens believe that availability of public toilets has improved since the start of the campaign, according to a LocalCircles survey.
The survey received over 39,000 responses from citizens located in 341 districts of India. While 69% respondents were men, 31% respondents were women. A total of 47% respondents were from tier 1, 31% from tier 2 and 22% respondents were from tier 3 and 4 districts.
‘30% URBAN INDIANS SEE SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENT’
The survey sought to know from citizens: ‘How has the availability of functional public toilets in your district/ city improved in the last 3 years?’
This query received 12,914 responses, with 52% of respondents indicating that there has been ‘no improvement’; 3% stating that the situation has in fact ‘gotten worse’; 30% felt there has been ‘significant improvement’ in the condition of public toilets in their district/city; 12% feel that the condition has ‘significantly improved’ and 3% opted for ‘can’t say’. In sum, 42% of Indians surveyed say availability of functional public toilets in their district/ city has improved in the past three years.
‘18% SAY THEY OR THEIR FAMILY MEMBERS USE PUBLIC TOILETS’
The next question was: ‘When you or your family have to use a toilet in public places in your city/ district, what do you generally do?’
This query received 13,701 responses, with 43% indicating that they ‘find a commercial establishment (restaurant, hotel, mall, etc.) with toilet and use that’; 15% of respondents indicated that they ‘find a petrol pump with toilet and use that’; 3% find ‘a free public toilet and use that’; 15% seek clean ‘paid public toilet’ facility .
However, among those surveyed, 15% ‘wait till we get home’ if they are not able to find a facility that meets their requirements; 6% of the respondents admitted that if suitable facility is not available they ‘end up doing it in the open’, while 3% stated that they use ‘other option than the ones listed above’. To sum up, only 18% of urban Indians surveyed stated that they or their family members use public toilets and 68% prefer visiting a commercial establishment (restaurant, hotel, petrol pump, etc.) and use the facility there.
10% SAID PUBLIC TOILETS THEY USED WERE WELL-MAINTAINED
‘When you visited a public toilet maintained by the local administration in your city/ district in the past three years, how did you find the maintenance?’
This crucial question received over 12,000 responses with hardly 10% of those surveyed indicating that the public toilets are well-maintained.
Data shows that while only 3% described their experience of using public toilets as ‘excellent/ nicely maintained)’ and 7% chose to describe it as ‘good/ well maintained’, the remaining were not satisfied. According to 37% of the respondents, the public toilets were ‘average/ functional’; 25% described them as ‘below average/ barely functional’; 16% found public toilets in a ‘terrible’ state and 12% found the public toilets ‘so bad, went but came out without using’.
The survey was conducted via LocalCircles platform and all participants were validated citizens who had to be registered with LocalCircles to participate in this survey.
LocalCircles is a community social media platform that enables citizens and small businesses to escalate issues for policy and enforcement interventions and enables the government to make policies that are citizen and small business centric.
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