19% still don’t use toilets: Survey

58% do not treat their water prior to drinking

New Delhi, May 11: Even though India was declared Open Defecation Free by the government in 2019, the latest NFHS survey conducted in 2019-21 showed that 19 percent of households do not use any toilet facility.

However, the report said the percentage of households practising open defecation decreased from 39 percent in 2015-16 to 19 per cent in 2019-21.

Access to a toilet facility is lowest in Bihar (62 per cent), followed by Jharkhand (70 per cent) and Odisha (71 per cent).

The NFHS-5 found that 69 percent of households use an improved sanitation facility that is not shared with other households and eight percent use a facility that would be considered improved if it was not shared.

“Nineteen percent of households have no facility, which means that the household members practice open defecation,” the report said.

“Eighty-three percent of households have access to a toilet facility. Sixty-nine percent of Indian households use improved toilet facilities, which are nonshared facilities that prevent people from coming into contact with human waste and can reduce the transmission of cholera, typhoid, and other diseases,” it said.

The survey found that 11 percent of urban households use a shared facility, compared with seven percent of rural households.

Access to a toilet facility ranges from 69 percent among scheduled tribe households to 93 percent among households which are not scheduled caste, scheduled tribe, or other backward class households.

On safe drinking water, the report showed that 58 percent of households do not treat their water prior to drinking.

“Treatment is less common in rural areas than urban areas; 66 percent of rural households do not treat their water, compared with 44 percent of urban households,” the report said. —