India's fact checking on toilets rests on asking the right questions

Accurate data on sanitation behaviour and toilet use can be captured if surveys ask questions on sanitation practices of all individuals in a household instead of one member, say experts

More than a year after the government declared that all rural households have access to toilets and are open defecation-free under the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), the National Family Health Survey 2019 (NFHS-5) shows differences between SBM portal data and the NFHS data.

On October 2, 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that 699 districts and 599,963 villages had "declared themselves as free from open defecation" under the SBM. The flagship rural sanitation programme launched in October 2014 has increased sanitation coverage from 39% to 100% in five years, the Centre claimed.

But the National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5, 2019-20),