Ghaziabad Open Defecation Lays Bare Swachh Bharat Mission Failure

Swachh Bharat Mission Lies Exposed: Open Defecation in Ghaziabad

In 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stood before the nation and declared a historic achievement — India was free from open defecation. The Swachh Bharat Mission, he said, had transformed rural India and the lives of BPL families. People had taken ownership of the campaign. Toilets had been built. Dignity had been restored.

But drive forty kilometres from the Prime Minister's office in New Delhi, into Ghaziabad — a city that is technically part of the national capital region — and the declaration begins to unravel. In slums and settlements across the city, women walk kilometres in the dark to relieve themselves. Men and women squat next to each other in open fields. Government toilets charge money that residents cannot afford. And the authorities, when asked to respond, go silent.

This is not a story from a remote village. This is happening in one of India's most urbanised corridors, in the shadow of flyovers connecting Ghaziabad to Delhi, next to high-rise residential apartments. The Swachh Bharat Mission may exist on paper, in government documents, and in prime ministerial speeches. On the ground in Ghaziabad, it is nowhere to be found.

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Swachh Bharat Mission and the Promise of an Open Defecation Free India

The Swachh Bharat Mission was launched on October 2, 2014 — Gandhi Jayanti — with the stated goal of eliminating open defecation across India by 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. It was the most ambitious sanitation drive in the country's history, with the government claiming to have constructed over 100 million toilets in rural areas alone.

In 2019, the government declared India Open Defecation Free, or ODF. Prime Minister Modi, addressing the nation, said that rural Indians themselves had declared freedom from open defecation. The Mission was held up as a landmark achievement of his government, cited in international forums and celebrated domestically as proof that large-scale behaviour change was possible.

But independent researchers, civil society organisations, and journalists who visited villages and urban settlements across the country found a different picture. Toilets had been constructed in some places but were non-functional. In others, they existed only on paper. In cities like Ghaziabad, where the urban poor live in densely packed slums without access to basic civic infrastructure, the Swachh Bharat Mission had not reached at all.

The Municipal Corporation of Ghaziabad has its own documentation on the subject — a document titled "Improving Sanitation Services of the Cleanest City of India through Service Level Benchmarking." It sets guidelines for eliminating open defecation and open urination within the city. It mentions that fines and penalties will be levied on violators. But for the women of Ghaziabad's slums, there is no alternative being offered. The fine falls on those who have no toilet to go to.

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Open Defecation in Ghaziabad: What Women Told Us

When The Probe went to multiple settlements across Ghaziabad, the testimonies we heard were consistent, distressing, and damning.

Tetri Khatoon, who lives near a public school in a slum, told us she has never had access to a toilet. Saira Khatoon said she has lived in the area for over thirty years and has had no toilet access in all that time. Shanti told us she defecates near a garbage dump, as she has done for twenty years. These are not isolated cases. Across settlement after settlement, residents described the same reality.

Women told us that men and women are forced to squat next to each other in open fields, parks, and along canal banks.

What made the situation even more alarming was what residents described about the conditions under which open defecation takes place. Women told us that men and women are forced to squat next to each other in open fields, parks, and along canal banks. Rajni Devi described men misbehaving with women who were relieving themselves in the open. Poonam Devi said the problem was so severe that women were unable to defecate in the mornings because of the presence of men. Kishan Singh, a male resident, told us plainly that gents and ladies sit right next to each other, and that the women's suffering was a source of shame for everyone in the community.

The harassment does not end there. Women described being stared at, followed, and abused by men while they went out to relieve themselves. Subeda Khatoon told us that groups of three or four men would gather to harass women who went out alone. When asked why she had not filed a complaint, she said what many poor women across India say — that no one listens to the poor. Sunita recalled that when the government first made its open defecation free announcement, people would beat residents and chase them away for defecating in the open, without providing any alternative.

Open defecation in Ghaziabad is not just a sanitation problem. It is a women's safety crisis.

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Government Toilets in Ghaziabad: Broken, Dirty, and Not Free

The government's sanitation drive did result in some toilet construction in Ghaziabad. Mobile toilets were installed under the scheme. Public conveniences were built by the municipal corporation. On paper, these facilities exist. In practice, residents told us they are largely unusable — or accessible only to those who can pay.

Multiple women told us that government-owned public toilets in their areas charge between five and ten rupees per use. For women who earn two hundred to four hundred rupees a day — or less — paying five rupees every time they need to use a toilet is not a minor inconvenience. It is a financial barrier that pushes them back into the open. Rakhi Samudre told us that she is the sole breadwinner of her family, her children are young, and she simply cannot afford to pay every time. So her family has dug their own pit. When the pit fills up every few months, they have nowhere to go.

Rajni Devi described being told by toilet caretakers — in a government facility — that if she could not pay, she should go defecate in the open. Pooja Bansal told us she was turned away at night because the caretaker questioned the timing of her visit. Sunita Aryawar described being abused while trying to use a public toilet.

When The Probe visited a public toilet under the Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation in Vasundhara, what we found was a facility clogged with human waste, waterlogged floors, a non-functional flush, and a stench that made the place completely unusable. A cleanliness rating board at the entrance — where users could push buttons to rate the facility — was also non-functional. This is a toilet that exists in the records of the Swachh Bharat Mission. It does not function in the lives of the people it was built to serve.

Swachh Bharat Mission Must Go Beyond Slogans

The Right to Sanitation is a Human Right

When The Probe approached the councilors of Ghaziabad for a response, one told us he was illiterate and could not speak to the media. The Mayor of Ghaziabad initially agreed to speak, but after being briefed on the story, stopped responding to calls and messages entirely. This silence from elected representatives is itself a statement — an admission, by omission, that the situation on the ground cannot be defended.

The Mission was not wrong in its ambition. The goal of making India open defecation free was the right goal. A country where women have to walk kilometres in the dark, face harassment, and squat next to strangers to relieve themselves is a country where the most basic human dignity is being violated every single day. That the government identified this as a national priority was correct.

What failed was implementation. What failed was accountability. What failed was the gap between the announcement and the reality — between the 2019 declaration of an open defecation free India and the women of Ghaziabad who have not seen a functional, accessible, free toilet in thirty years.

The right to sanitation is recognised under international human rights law as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living. In India, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution includes the right to live with dignity — and dignity, for millions of women in this country, begins with a safe, clean, free toilet.

The Swachh Bharat Mission cannot be a political slogan. It cannot be a declaration made from a podium and forgotten in the settlements. If the government wants people to stop defecating in the open, it must give them somewhere else to go. It must ensure that the toilets it builds actually work. It must ensure that government facilities are free to use, as they are legally required to be. And it must hold local authorities accountable when they fail — not levy fines on the poor for a problem the government itself created.

The women of Ghaziabad are not asking for much. They are asking for a toilet. They are asking to relieve themselves without being stared at, harassed, or charged money they do not have. They are asking for the most basic human right. The Swachh Bharat Mission promised them exactly that. It is long overdue.