Many toilets constructed under the Swachh Bharat Mission have already become defunct and unusable, according to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Development. It slammed the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation for not bothering to find out the scope of the problem, despite an earlier recommendation to conduct a survey.
“Till the time the problem of toilets becoming dysfunctional is not tackled seriously by the Ministry, the objective of full household sanitation coverage in the entire rural areas of the country by October 2, 2019, would remain a distant dream,” said the committee in its report on the action taken by the government on earlier recommendations, which was presented to Parliament earlier this week.
Ministry claim
In its reply, the Ministry claimed that only toilets built under previous schemes were defunct. “Dysfunctional toilets are those which were constructed under earlier rural sanitation programme, especially during Total Sanitation Campaign, with incentive of ₹500 to ₹3,200,” said the Ministry. Funds from the Finance Ministry’s Swachh Bharat Kosh, which channels private and corporate money to the mission, were being used to retrofit these defunct toilets constructed under earlier schemes, it said.
However, the parliamentary panel made it clear that Swachh Bharat toilets were also dysfunctional.
“To the utter dismay of the committee, it has been observed that many toilets already constructed under SBM have become defunct and non-usable due to various reasons pertaining to the quality of construction and scarcity of water. The committee was disturbed while taking cognisance of this situation and feel that for the success of this vision, the constructed toilets needs to be safe and sustainable so that they can be utilised for a long period of time,” the report said.
The panel had recommended that the Ministry do an assessment to find out the number of such defunct toilets, and criticised the Ministry for not following the recommendation. “The Ministry reply is silent as to what action has been initiated to conduct the recommended survey for assessment of such toilets which have already become redundant and unusable,” it said.
It had warned that the Swachh Bharat Mission’s data on open defecation was suspect as defunct toilets are being counted as functional. “The data on the SBM portal which indicates that the beneficiaries has already been provided with a toilet creates a situation wherein, if the toilets so constructed were not of good quality and become defunct within a short span of time and as such are not being used, are still counted as functional toilets,” said the report.
“The beneficiaries are in no position to avail the re-allocation of construction of toilets and still go in the open.”
