Despite having toilets, 4.4% rural people defecate in open

Despite having toilets in their houses, 4.4% people in rural areas prefer to defecate in the open, Union Minister Ramesh Chandappa Jigajinagi told the Lok Sabha on Thursday. "As per Swachhata Status Report, 2015 published by National Sample Survey Office, in rural India the households persons using toilet was 95.6%," the MoS for Drinking Water and Sanitation said in a written reply.

To accelerate the efforts to achieve universal sanitation coverage, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the Swachh Bharat Mission on October 2, 2014. The purpose of the mission is to achieve Swachh Bharat by 2019, as a fitting tribute to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150th Birth Anniversary. In rural areas this means improving the level of cleanliness. The government has constructed 210.62 lakh toilets since October 2, 2014. As many as 72,096 villages have been declared open defecation free. The focus of Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) is on behaviour change of people to adopt safe sanitation. In order to educate the people, the programme lays emphasis on community involvement.