The Hindu       22.09.2014   

More men among toilet-sceptics in India

Extensive new evidence shows that building toilets alone will not eliminate open defecation in India as not everyone who has access to toilet, especially men, believe that it’s important to use it.

Not having a toilet remains the major problem in sanitation: 60 per cent of rural households and just under 10 per cent of urban households in India do not have access to a toilet, according to new official data from the 68th round of the National Sample Survey (NSS) data. But even among households with access to toilets, some open defecation exists. According to NSS data, two per cent of rural households with access to toilets do not use them. However, researchers Diane Coffey, Aashish Gupta et al of the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics (RICE) found that 7 per cent of households with access to a toilet were not using them. When they looked at households where at least one family member was not using the toilet, the number swelled to 18 per cent.

This number is being driven up by men, who, in all three surveys, reported lower toilet use than women.

“I built the toilet for my youngest daughter-in-law not to feel shame. But I go to the fields – it’s much healthier going there,” Ramavatar, a marginal farmer in Uttar Pradesh’s Fatehpur district, told The Hindu earlier this summer. Such “personal preference” is overwhelmingly the most common reason for not using toilets despite access seen in both NSS and RICE data.