74.6% public places have toilets, 84.2% premises see minimal littering: Govt report
New Delhi, Oct 02 (PTI) About 74.6 percent of public places have toilets while 84.2 percent of them see minimal littering in their premises, according to a new government report.
According to the report by the Jal Shakti ministry released on the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, the observation teams visited 85,872 public places such as shrines, bazaars, health facilities, anganwadi centres and government schools.
They found that at least 74.6 percent of public places had access to toilets, minimal littering was observed within the premises in 84.2 percent of them and there was minimal stagnant waste water in 93.1 percent of these locations.
As many as 5,13,77,176 responses were captured under Citizens Feedback via households, web and mobile app. Sanitation facilities were documented in 1,75,521 households too.
To capture village level information from key informants, 87,560 face-to-face interviews were conducted.
A total of 17,539 villages were observed for village-level waste management assets and IEC displays for Open Defecation Free (ODF) and Swachh Survekshan Grameen (SSG).
“About 35.2 percent of villages had a common place or shed for segregation of solid waste, 35.7 percent of villages had community soak pits, magic pits or drains for wastewater, 24 percent had community-level composting pits, 32.9 percent had arrangements for door-to-door waste collection and 10.6 percent had facilities for menstrual waste management,” it said.
About 36.4 percent of the villages displayed banners on SSG and 32.3 percent of them did so on ODF Plus status.
Surveys were also carried out during SSG-2022 to understand the access and usage of toilets by individuals in households.
About 95.4 percent households in villages have access to toilets, it said. Around 70.2 percent households have some system in place to dispose of solid wastes generated from their houses 75.4 percent households have a system to junk liquid wastes. About 94.6 percent of them surveyed are aware of safe Menstrual Hygiene Management practices, the survey said.
Around 84.5 percent of key informants said sanitation has improved in their villages since the launch of Swachh Bharat Mission.
About 58.5 percent respondents said their villages have initiated Solid Waste Management while 60.3 percent said there was Liquid Waste Management respectively. Of these, 66.2 percent people were satisfied with the waste management systems, the report said.
