In 1986, the Central government had launched the Central Rural Sanitation Programme — the first nationwide programme aimed at dealing with issues related to sanitation. Several other sanitation programmes were launched in the next 28 years, like the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan in rural India and Basic Services for Urban Poor in urban India. However, India’s aim to be Open Defecation Free (ODF) remained unfulfilled as millions of toilets that were built are never used.
On 2 October, 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi proclaimed that “rural India and its villages have declared themselves open defecation-free”, five years after the launch of the Centre’s flagship programme Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM). However, several studies at the village level reported that this was not quite the case.