Society

World Toilet Day History: Swachh Bharat & ODF Plus

World Toilet Day is observed every November 19, created by the World Toilet Organization in 2001 and formally designated by the UN General Assembly in 2013. In…

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WTO FOUNDED

World Toilet Day is created

The World Toilet Organization establishes World Toilet Day on November 19, using a deliberately blunt name to force public conversation about a subject most people avoid…

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UN RESOLUTION

UN General Assembly designates November 19

On July 24, 2013, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution A/RES/67/291, proposed by Singapore, designating November 19 as World Toilet Day - adopted by consensus with…

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SBM LAUNCH

Swachh Bharat Mission launches

India launches Swachh Bharat Mission on October 2, 2014, Gandhi's birth anniversary, targeting elimination of rural open defecation by October 2, 2019, from a baseline c…

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NARSS ROUND 1

First independent verification survey

The first National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey finds 77% toilet access, 93.4% usage among households with access, and reconfirms ODF status for 95.6% of previously ve…

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NARSS ROUND 2

Access and usage rise, ODF reconfirmation dips

The second NARSS finds 93.1% toilet access and 96.5% usage among households with access - both sharply higher - while ODF village reconfirmation falls to 90.7%, showing…

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ODF DECLARED

India's villages declare Open Defecation Free

On October 2, 2019 - Gandhi's 150th birth anniversary and the mission's original deadline - villages, districts, states and UTs declare ODF, with over 10 crore rural toi…

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PHASE II BEGINS

ODF Plus introduced

SBM-Grameen Phase II shifts the objective from 'has open defecation ended' to 'is that status sustained, and is solid/liquid waste being managed' - toilet construction b…

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95%+ ODF PLUS

Over 95% of villages declared ODF Plus

By December 27, 2024, government reporting credits a 460% rise in ODF Plus villages since 2022 - over 5.61 lakh, with 69%+ reaching Model status. The World Toilet Day ca…

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VERIFICATION GAP

Declared vs. verified: the current bottleneck

The live SBM-G dashboard shows 569,838 of 586,944 villages declared ODF Plus, and 527,548 declared ODF Plus Model - but only about 90,789 (17.2%) of those Model villages…

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