Nearly a year into India’s ambitious plan to end open defecation by 2019 and nongovernmental organizations fear it’s being derailed by an overwhelming focus on building toilets instead of changing behavior.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the $31 billion Swachh Bharat mission in October, which aims to make more than 110 million toilets in five years.
“It’s supposed to be a demand-driven program, demand creation followed by toilet construction,” said Nitya Jacob, head of policy at WaterAid. But he said government workers implementing the mission were under immense pressure to hit annual targets, which means, “It’s just toilet construction to meet the target and not the other way round.”