Abstract
India has the highest number of people defecating in the open, and the Indian Government is trying to eradicate by constructing toilets for its citizens. This paper is about whether the government is likely to succeed in its cleanliness drive mission by a supply-side policy. We examine the household preference and other the factors leading to open defecation in India. We examine preference for having a toilet in the household over the preference of other household durable goods. Our results suggest toilets get a lower preference—ranked 12, out of 21 different types of consumer durables we investigate. The results also indicate a strong case for imparting education and public awareness, especially, among the female cohort. We find the odds of having toilets in a household with an educated woman (18 years of schooling) is 3.1 times more than a household with illiterate or preschool educated women. Among other factors households living in urban areas are 19 times more likely to have toilets in comparison with their rural counterparts.
Highlights
1.1 BackgroundOn 2 October 2014, the Indian Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi launched the Swachh Bharat (Clean India) mission, aimed at creating a ‘Clean India’ over the 5 years
When the analysis is done conditioning on other socio-economic characteristics, in terms of odds ratio of having a toilet (prob(toilet)/prob(notoilet)), we found that a household in which a woman has attained higher education (18 years of schooling) is 3.1 times more likely to have toilets
Bonu and Kim (2009) use this wealth index as an independent variable. They use a large data set obtained from the 60th round of National Sample Survey (January–June 2004), a limitation in their methodology arises from toilets featuring both as dependent and independent variables which leads to problems of endogeneity
Summary
On 2 October 2014, the Indian Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi launched the Swachh Bharat (Clean India) mission, aimed at creating a ‘Clean India’ over the 5 years. The mission is a response to the rising perception about Indian cities as not being clean. Only 32.70 of rural households have access to toilets. India has the highest number of people defecating in the open, at a staggering number of 597 million (WHO and UNICEF 2014). In 2012, the average concentration of open defecate per square kilometre area was highest in India that was more than double of the world average (Coffey et al 2014). About 100,000 tons of human faeces are found in the open (UNICEF 2012)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
