Patna/New Delhi, Aug. 31: Bihar is among the states with the poorest progress towards open-defecation-free (ODF) targets with some districts requiring 500 toilets every day to meet 2019 goals, a report from the non-government Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) released today said.
The report said that of the 6.4 crore households that need toilets in India, Uttar Pradesh's share is 23 per cent, Bihar 22 per cent, Odisha 8 per cent and Jharkhand 4 per cent. Together they account for 57 per cent of the households without toilets and these four states will need to accelerate efforts for India to reach its ODF goal by October 2019 under the Swachch Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Initiative) launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in October 2014.
The CSE study, titled 'Global target, local challenge', was released in Patna today.
The Union drinking water and sanitation ministry had said in June this year that Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, rural Haryana and rural Uttarakhand along with more than 200,000 villages and 147 districts across India are now ODF. It had also said sanitation coverage had increased from 42 per cent to 64 per cent since 2014.
But the CSE report has estimated that about 7.9 million (79 lakh) toilets nationwide are in unusable conditions. 'It's one thing to build toilets, quite another to ensure they're being used,' Sunita Narain, director-general of the CSE, said in a news release. 'Flawed toilet technology, shortage of resources such as water, and lack of administrative will to address these factors are pulling states away from becoming ODF,' she said.
'To clean our country, the role of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and Jharkhand is critical. They need to clean up their act. It's important to have proper policies for these laggard states and the focus should be on the use of toilets rather than the number of toilets being built,' Narain added.
The CSE report estimates Bihar accounts for 22 per cent of the 64 million (6.4 crore) households in the country without toilets. Seven of 10 people in Bihar in June 2017 had no access to adequate toilet facilities, according to the report which says at the current pace of efforts, Bihar will achieve 100 per cent toilet coverage only by 2033.
'Bihar has focused on building toilets at breakneck speed without making people aware of them, without ensuring these toilets are functional and are used,' Sushmita Sengupta, a lead researcher with the CSE, said in the release.
The report has said while Bihar achieved 50 per cent success in building 1.6 million (16 lakh) toilets during 2016-17, but against 8 per cent funds allocated for an information and education campaign on toilet usage, the state had spent only 0.18 per cent.
The CSE said that Bhagalpur district would need to add 534 toilets every day from now to achieve the 100 per cent ODF target by October 2019. Nalanda would need to add 554 toilets to meet the October 2019 deadline.
Sitamarhi district was to become ODF by August 15, but the current floods set it back after inundating and destroying a large number of toilets - old and new.
Bihar rural development department secretary Arvind Kumar Chaudhary said: 'The floods in north Bihar have set the affected districts back by two to three months. We are aiming to make nine to 10 districts ODF by March 2018 and the entire state ODF by October 2019.'
Chaudhary pointed out that the government is now realising that construction and use toilets were not dependent on money, but on behaviour. Behavioural changes need to be brought in the state, he said.
