No open defecation after 2030

Celebrated every year on November 19, World Toilet Day is about taking action to ensure that everyone has a safe toilet by 2030. This is part of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6: Sanitation and water.

According to the United Nations, 4.5 billion people live without proper sanitation and 892 million people still practice open defecation. The impact of exposure to human faeces on this scale has a devastating impact on public health, living conditions, nutrition, education, and economic productivity across the world.

 If we talk about India in particular, sanitation as a fundamental right was recognised by the Supreme court in the 1990s. But the awareness and access to toilets and sanitation have attracted more attention in the nation only since the 'Swachh Bharat Mission' was introduced by the Modi government. It has been reported that the nation-wide project seeks to make India an 'open-defecation' free country  by October 2, 2019 – the 150th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi.

Talking about the improvement in public toilet facilities and awareness in people, Ram Das, a public toilet cleaner at Rajiv Chowk metro station in Delhi said, "It is very good that we are stepping towards a better India. Now that we have started taking initiatives towards such issues, public toilets are much cleaner now and people are ready to use them, unlike the older times."

Sadly, before the campaign was introduced, the country accounted for more than half of the world's 1.1 billion people who routinely used to relieve themselves in fields, beaches, and other open spaces. Women, in particular, have been the victims of this unawareness and lack of understanding, rightly portrayed in the film Toilet: Ek Prem Katha.

 Sharmila, who works in a factory in Delhi shares that since there is an improvement in the condition of public toilets now, as they have become more usable, it is easier for women to come out and work even during menstruation.

 Not only this, migrants living in cluster areas of cities have also happily shared how toilets have been made back in there villages, which has solved the problems of infections, open defecation, and safety of women.

  Amidst all the praising and good thoughts about the change, some people have also complained about the malfunctioning or bad use of public toilets by a section of the population. "Living in a city, I feel the least we can do is to use public property properly. But people even today tend to misuse it.

They don't flush after using the toilet or openly throw the sanitary pads," Shruti Kamra, an IP university student told Millennium Post.

 Taking forward the initiative to aware people about the need for clean toilets, Geeta Chandran, Dancer will be launching a public information and culture-changing campaign focusing on 'toilet use'.

She believes that while we may be building structures as part of the national Swachch Bharat campaign, there is no thought of training first-generation toilet-users on how to use a toilet.

So Chandran has created a paradigm of rights and duties which she wishes to take to students and the public. Her slogan for World Toilet Day 2018 is 'You have the right to a clean toilet, but the person after you also have the right to a clean toilet'. 

The initiative was highly appreciated by the Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Puri who stated: "Under the Swachh Bharat mission, a lot of toilets have been constructed across the country, but the most important need of the hour is to change the mindsets and behaviour of our people towards the use of toilets in one's daily life. People from all walks of life must be sensitised about their lifestyle, health, and dignity to make it a mass movement.  That is why I congratulate all your efforts in taking this initiative forward."

With the theme 'When the nature calls' – World Toilet Day 2018 is about toilets and nature. It is very important for us that we take care of nature as it is the only thing which is going to return the favour. Be it water, food or any human requirement, nature has always helped human beings.So this time, on World's Toilet Day, we should pledge to build toilets and sanitation systems that work in harmony with our environment. When nature calls, we have to listen and act.

Though the annual event is a joint effort by prominent international organizations like UN-Water, Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), World Health Organization, UNDP, UNICEF, Toilet Board Coalition, International Labour Association, among others, there has to be an individual effort to achieve the goal.

 Apart from all the initiatives taken worldwide, it is very important for every citizen to do their share. Help building a clean and open-defecation free world.