As Kerala makes headway in becoming 'open defecation-free’, agents of change in the state assume a critical role in the mission.
The Government of Kerala has declared the state will become 'open defecation-free' (ODF) by November 1, 2016, coinciding with Kerala Piravi Dinam or "the birthday of Kerala."
To complete the construction of nearly 2 lakh toilets, across 941 panchayats, in one of the most populous states in the country with a challenging geographical terrain and demographics, is indeed a daunting task.
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Training being imparted by Costford team on how to use reinforced bamboo for toilet walls in tribal areas[/caption]
Source: Costford
The construction of toilets in hamlets in remote hilly areas of the Attapadi region in Palakkad district, and coastal areas such as Alappuzha district, presents not only enormous technological challenges but is expensive as well.
“Grama panchayats are playing a pivotal role in this. They are driving this project along with other local bodies and self-help groups,” Shri K.T. Jaleel, Minister for Local Self Governments, told
The Better India (TBI).
“The Kerala government is taking a proactive role. While the Swachch Bharat Mission will provide the funds, fund transfer will take time. Panchayats have been advised to use their own development funds in order to meet the deadline,” says Shri L.P. Chither, Project Management and State Nodal Officer for Swachch Bharat Mission.
Suchitwa Mission, the state nodal agency for sanitation, and Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan are implementing the plan. Funds are disbursed through the agency to local bodies. Kudumbashree, a community network that works in tandem with local self governments for poverty eradication and women empowerment, has joined hands with Suchitwa Mission to train women in the construction of toilets.
“Kudumbashree is the main ground level resource and many of our activities are carried out by them. In Kerala, almost all the women belonging to the lower income group (LIG) belong to Kudumbashree. Most of our beneficiaries would
also belong to Kudumbashree. We reach them through this network,” says Dr. K Vasuki, Executive Director, Suchitwa Mission.
Historically, the tribal areas have been outside the realm of development. Pipelines have not reached the hamlets and water is scarce. Women often have to carry water for their domestic chores and for use for defecation of others.
Even where there are toilets, they have fallen into disuse as many village elders prefer open defecation. Meanwhile, the depleted forest cover makes it difficult for women to defecate in the open.
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![Completed toilet, Panayam GP, Kollam]()
Completed toilet, Panayam GP, Kollam[/caption]
Source: Suchitwa Mission, Government of Kerala
“In 2014, faced with severe malnutrition and high infant mortality rates, we had started community kitchens in the Attapadi block, which is inhabited largely by tribal communities. At that time itself, we realised open defecation was a serious health issue,” says Dr. Seema Bhaskaran, COO Attapadi Comprehensive Tribal Activity Development Project, National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM).
“There are several cultural issues as well. Even if they have toilets, many don’t use them. In some tribal hamlets, if a father-in-law uses a toilet, then the daughter-in-law cannot use it. That is why we are focusing on community toilets, separated by gender, in such areas where there is water facility – where they can wash their clothes, bathe the children, etc., and thereby reduce the burden on women,” reveals Dr. Bhaskaran.
Roping in change agents is crucial to making the ODF mission a true success.
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![Rural Sensitization Camp By students of Rajagiri College, Attapadi District]()
Rural Sensitization Camp By students of Rajagiri College, Attapadi District[/caption]
Source: Suchitwa Mission, Government of Kerala
Recognizing the need for behavioural change in tribal areas, it is essential to utilize the services of Kudumbashree and neighbourhood groups for continuous interpersonal communication. This will help create awareness regarding the ill-effects of open defecation. “We will continuously engage in this educational process in each hamlet, which will culminate on December 10, 2016, International Human Rights Day,” says Dr. Bhaskaran.
The NRLM is, in fact, taking a larger view. Construction work, hitherto under the control of contractors, is now being taken up by the tribals themselves.
“Livelihood for the tribal youth is a huge issue. Many are unemployed. This is the first time the construction work will be done by them. Until now, only contractors have undertaken such jobs and exploitation of workers has been rampant. Currently, the direct involvement of the community has led to huge confrontations. Despite this, we hope to finish training by September 19, after which construction will commence,” reveals Dr. Bhaskaran.
In the coastal areas, change management activities are being activated through several NGOs. Field level volunteers create awareness by visiting people door to door. The ODF mission can be successful only if various stakeholders keep up the momentum.
“We are working with Costford, an NGO that has developed new low cost construction technology. We engage with students of social work colleges who conduct surveys and campaigns in difficult areas. We have identified 39,120 toilets in critical areas, which cost more. Additional funds are required. Hence, we are trying to get CSR funds. Some companies have supported us, such as Malabar Group. Some local cooperative banks and resorts in the coastal areas are also coming forward,” says Sri. Ameersha R. S, Programme Officer (CCDU), Suchitwa Mission.
“Right now, we are training a group of women masons identified by Suchitwa Mission, in low cost construction methods using indigenous materials such as bamboo reinforced with mud. We have already started our training, mainly in Attapadi in Palakkad district and Thrissur district so that the tribal communities can start the work soon,” says Mr. Sudhir, Member of Costford.
When TBI contacted The Malabar Group, Mr. Valeed, Head of CSR, elaborated, “For the ODF initiative, we are providing septic tanks and WCs. We work with the block level
samitis. While the beneficiaries and requirements are identified by them, we support in kind - as long as our criteria of the beneficiary’s land and house size is met.”
Students of social work are working hand in hand with local bodies doing ground work, creating awareness and running campaigns. In some areas where the terrain is not easily accessible, transportation of materials is not only difficult but expensive as well. “Students have transported bricks and cement and have even supported the initiative by digging pits, clearing the area, etc,” says Shri Chither.
Dr. Anish K R of Rajagiri College, speaking to TBI, explains the role their students play. “The Association of Schools of Social Work in Kerala has 46 member-colleges across Kerala. Every district has been linked to a school of social work and they align to the planned programs. Our students went door to door to verify the authenticity of these applications and reports. Once these toilets are built, the challenge is to make them use it. Behaviour change work is next and we will contribute as we are advised.”
“We have supported in terms of field verification in the Peermade Grama Panchayat in Idukki District. Our students verify whether households have sanitary latrines or not to rule out any false applications,” reiterates Dr. P. Saleel Kumar, Assistant Professor, Marian College.
Enormous efforts from several tiers will be required to complete the project on time. While the government is confident of meeting the deadline, the need of the hour is to bring about change in behaviour and practices. It is heartening to see a multi pronged approach involving the state government, administrative bodies, NGOs, corporates, student communities, and self-help group groups to ensure this happens.
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About the author: Rati is a qualitative researcher by profession, with a deep love for travel, people, art and culture. In her spare time she likes to read books set in cross cultural backdrops, write on socially relevant topics and run marathons
Girish Agarwal climbed Mt Kilimanjaro on February 29. Source: 
Girish Agarwal at Mt Kilimanjaro. Source: 
Source: 
Smart ‘Plug & Play’ Toilet Units Are Hygienic, Self Contained and ‘Green’[/caption]
Bio toilets[/caption]
Soldiers stationed in the high altitude regions of Siachen and Ladakh need toilets and sustainable disposal of human waste. Scientists at DRDO (Defence Research Development Organisation) chanced upon a strain of bacteria, Psychrophile, on a scientific expedition in Antarctica in the 1990s. They brought home a strain of the bacteria and subsequently developed a microbial consortium comprising four clusters of bacteria from Antarctica and other low temperature areas.
Following research, the consortium was introduced in their makeshift toilets in Siachen and Ladakh. As these bacteria thrive in extreme temperatures, the experiment succeeded and was emulated, but largely within the confines of the army establishment. It was not until 2012 that the technology gained ground elsewhere, including in the Indian Railways.
Introduced into a chamber constructed below the water closet, the self-sustaining bacteria feed upon the faeces; the anaerobic process degrades the matter within 48 hours. These odour free, water-sealed, off-grid toilets are a sustainable alternative to septic tanks and pit latrines, the mainstay of sanitation in the south. The small one-time price to procure the inoculum (Rs. 6,000) possesses the potential to transform Indian urban space.
Illustration of an off-grid toilet[/caption]
At about the same time the DRDO toilet was available for civilian use in 2012, a retired Chief Engineer from Andhra Pradesh, M Dharma Rao, developed an affordable alternative. The inoculum is replaced by a handful of earthworms that generate compost from faeces. Mr Dharma Rao has constructed a few hundred of these toilets in Hyderabad. Six months of toilet use produces a bucket (10 litre capacity) of compost, thus rendering the toilet maintenance free. Mr Dharma Rao’s innovation scores high on the sustainability index; importantly, the toilet is affordable and costs less than Rs. 12,000 to build.
There probably are more undocumented solutions. Exasperatingly, the sanitation crisis has not yet attracted the imagination of the global talent pool to develop lasting, affordable solutions. India may want to scale up manifold innovations such as discussed.
If the years 1974 and 1989 marked important contributions from the south for mobility (Mayor Jamie Lerner’s design of the Bus Rapid Transit System for Curitiba) and municipal budgeting (Participatory Budgeting in Porto Alegre), the year 2016 should be earmarked to develop affordable, sustainable, and scalable sanitation solutions. We cannot afford to not rid settlements of unsustainable pit latrines, septic tanks, and open defecation.
- MS Raghavendra
Eleven hundred students (and counting) from various colleges are volunteering to build these toilets brick by brick. Danseuse Mridula Roy has committed to contribute to build one toilet every month. Corporates and other organizations are funding the initiative too. Coimbatore’s Municipal Commissioner, Vijayakarthikeyan, says every day he receives at least two cheques towards Toilet First. In short, thousands of people from different walks of life are coming together to make Coimbatore open defecation-free.
What’s special about this initiative? The Toilet First initiative works on a very unique idea, arguably the first ever in India, a crowdsourcing model to build toilets. In Swachh Bharat, the funds for building toilets come in portion contributions – from the Swachh Bharat fund, from the state governments, from the local civic bodies, and from the beneficiaries. While the first three fund sources are available, the last part where the beneficiary has to contribute is where the catch lies. How do you get the toilets built when the families cannot afford to contribute their share? That’s where the smart move of crowdsourcing comes in from Coimbatore’s Municipal Corporation.
The team, led by the Municipal Commissioner Vijayakarthikeyan, has formed a nonprofit body called Toilet First, which pitches in to make up for the deficit amount through crowdsourcing. The team has gone all out – with an impressive website and a catchy logo, a full-fledged social media campaign, and tremendous amount of local involvement.
Coimbatore Municipal Commissioner Vijayakarthikeyan (Center) with the volunteer team[/caption]
Toilet First has become the mobilizer of a fast paced movement to build toilets in every household in the city of Coimbatore. How fast paced you may ask? Toilet First, which is just one-and-a-half months old, has already built 600 new toilets in households in the city. The city has mapped the households that do not have toilets and got applications to build 2500 toilets. To reach this target, the team is literally on a construct-a-thon for toilets. The Toilet First army of volunteers, involving students and the public, is getting together to build toilets overnight. The team is taking up a construct-a-thon challenge to build 1000 toilets within 72 hours in the month of May – a feat that Coimbatore will take great pride in. As a demo towards the construct-a-thon, 50 toilets were built within 72 hours in Kalapatti. With regular construction and the construct-a-thon, the first phase target of 2500 toilets will be completed in the next couple of months, says a very confident Commissioner.
A happy beneficiary of the Toilet First initiative[/caption]
Students can be seen busily working on construction sites before and after their college hours.[/caption]
They supervise the work, coordinate with the labourers, and even dirty their hands with hands on construction work. On a daily basis, they update the team about the progress through a dedicated Toilet First app.
Toilet First’s motto, “Let's Fund Together, Build Together, Unite Together,” is in many such ways bringing Coimbatore together as a city, beyond achieving its Swachh Bharat goals.
Featured Image Credits: 
Suriya Ansari[/caption]
Suriya quit her job and spent a year travelling before she came across the 
Suriya discussing the toilet with residents of Tiloynia[/caption]
“It was around the same time that they were implementing the Swachch Bharat Abhiyaan,” Suriya remembers, “so I asked the people whether they were facing any problems and why.”
Suriya found that few people could afford to build toilets, even with the subsidies:
Suriya with labourers outside the pilot toilet in TIlonia[/caption]
There were a couple of hits and misses along the way before Suriya finally chanced upon a solution that would answer all of Tikwada’s concerns. “A friend told me that Gram Vikas was already working on a low-cost toilet solution in a tribal district in Odisha and that they were very successful. It was the ‘twin-pit pour-flush’ system.”
Suriya, who had already been researching the model, was given a chance by Barefoot to visit Odisha and see the model at work.
Work begins on the prototype[/caption]
The ‘twin-pit pour-flush’ model not only addresses the cost and water issues faced by most of rural India, but does so while meeting international standards of health and hygiene as well as quality.
Explains Suriya: “The toilet pan, the pits and the junction chamber are the three elements of the model. The toilet pan connects to two external pits via the junction chamber.”
Laying of the 'deep rural' toilet pan at Kotri[/caption]
“Regular flush tanks use about a bucket of water per flush. This model uses only one or two mugs of water per flush,” explains Suriya.
On flushing, the refuse makes its way to one of the two pits. “The pit is covered and sealed. It is also not plastered and kept kaccha. We call this a ‘leak pit’ since all the liquid leaks into the soil and is absorbed by it. The remaining sludge gets converted into manure after two years.”
Construction of the pits at Kotri[/caption]
“Pit 1 is used for the first two years, after which Pit 2 is used, allowing the sludge in Pit 1 to convert to manure over the two years. After using Pit 2 for two years, you switch back to Pit 1,” explains Suriya. “The longevity of this model is greater because you can alternate between the pits.”
Suriya also made modifications to the original model: “In the Odisha model, when the time comes to switch from one pit to another, it is done manually. People dislike this, and if they don’t switch pits, it defeats the purpose of the model. So to tackle this problem, I used a simple solution: a valve that closes the entrance to one pit and opens it for the other.”
Yet, perhaps most remarkable of all, is that this eco-friendly toilet solution costs little more than half the cost of a regular toilet.
Suriya working on the Kotri toilet[/caption]
Despite the low cost, Suriya believes that the only way to ensure that toilets are viewed as a boon and not a punishment is if governments and NGOs get together to offer interest-free 'Water and Sanitation Loans.'
The toilet at Kotri[/caption]
More than 80 women are all set to benefit from the construction of this toilet. It has also attracted people from nearby villages who have approached Suriya with requests to build toilets in their communities. “We have received some requests to build household toilets as well,” she says.
But finance is proving to be the biggest obstacle. “Raising funds is taking a lot of time,” confesses Suriya. “Whenever I get the funds, I build the toilets. But it has been slow.”
Despite the many twists and turns life has taken to get Suriya here, her journey has not only impacted her but the lives of those around her as she slowly but surely improves the health and sanitation conditions in rural India.
Deepa with her one-year-old son in front of their recently constructed toilet[/caption]
Banumathi Rengar lives in Keelakottamedu village. She and her husband work as daily wage labourers to give their three teenage daughters a better quality of life.
With no access to a toilet, the family was forced to defecate in the open fields where they had to put up with insects, animals and the risk of disease. Defecating in the open also proved to be a growing safety concern for the girls, who could easily fall prey to molesters and rapists.
In the name of modesty, women often wait to relieve themselves until the veil of darkness falls, but these hours only made Banumathi more nervous.
Banumathi in front of the toilet she built to ensure the safety of her teenage daughters[/caption]
When Mangaiyarkarsai Shankar moved to the village with her husband and her four-year-old daughter, she was surprised to see that her new home didn’t come with a bathroom.
Picture Source
Anoop along with villagers at a water ATM[/caption]
They were extremely disturbed to see that their friend and classmate Agathiyan, who comes from a very poor family, was frequently falling sick and missing school. He had even developed a skin disease on his foot.
All this was being caused by lack of sanitation facilities in his home.
So, the four friends decided to take matters into their own hands. They raised money to build a toilet for Agathiyan from among their classmates at school.
To save expenses, they decided they would do the actual construction work themselves.
They were encouraged in their efforts by their teacher Veeramani, who also helped them organise an Independence Day rally to raise awareness about the importance of sanitation and health and having a proper toilet at home.
These four boys have set an example for others in their community and hopefully more and more people will now make the effort to construct toilets in their homes.
Training being imparted by Costford team on how to use reinforced bamboo for toilet walls in tribal areas[/caption]
Completed toilet, Panayam GP, Kollam[/caption]
Rural Sensitization Camp By students of Rajagiri College, Attapadi District[/caption]
People in Sikkim[/caption]
M G Marg, Gangtok[/caption]
National Sanitation Awareness Campaign organized at Geyzing[/caption]
Community Sanitation Campaign in West Sikkim[/caption]
The machines are easily replicable and can be set up within Rs. 10 lakh. This means that such units can be set up across India without middlemen.
IITians Suhani Mohan and Kartik Mehta founded Saral Designs in June 2015. Suhani says, “While conducting some research in this field, we found out that 23 % of girls in India dropout from schools once they start menstruating due to the lack of proper facilities. They resort to using unhygienic material, which leads them to contracting reproductive tract infections. A lot of government schools and NGOs are creating awareness about hygienic menstrual practices, but the challenge is finding good quality products. Small-scale manufactures produce inexpensive pads but the material they use isn’t very good. And the number of pads that they make isn’t enough to sustain the costs borne by the company for electricity, manpower etc,.”
The Saral team is made up of nine young engineers from IITs, NITs and BITS Pilani and has around 15 people working on production and local sales. Suhani thinks of that their background in learning technology has been very useful in developing an easy to replicate, low-cost machine for producing sanitary napkins. She says, “We managed to make a machine that produces high-quality pads 30 times faster than the average. Our product is called Aisha Ultra XL, which are “ultra-thin pads with wings” and they are sold at Rs. 30 for a pack seven. The price is pretty low compared to other rival brands. We’ve been producing these pads for nine months and have managed to sell more than 2 Lakh pieces so far.”
Suhani says, “We have a team of 20 women, who go door-to-door and make girls aware of safe menstrual practises. They also let the girls try our products and sell it to them on a monthly basis if they like it. Additionally, we have distributed vending machines in schools and colleges across Mumbai.”
The Saral team has also started partnering with NGOs in Karnataka and Chhattisgarh to make pads accessible to young women in remote villages. One such organisation is Shiksharth, an NGO working in the tribal dominated area called Sukma, Chattisgarh. With this partnership, they hope to educate 1000 girls about menstrual hygiene practices and provide them with one year’s worth supply of sanitary napkins.
So, how this partnership happen? Suhani says, “In 2015, I met Ashish Shrivastava, the founder of Shiksharth while doing my Acumen fellowship. The Acumen fellowship is run by a US-based organisation that conducts fellowship programmes for leadership development. When Ashish did his Teach for India fellowship, he realised that girls in India, don’t drop out of school as much in urban areas as they do in tribal areas after they start menstruating. So he decided to move to Chattisgarh where this situation is very critical and set up a school. He’s fighting to convince families to let their daughters finish their education. We know that education is a way out of poverty and violence. Also, there is a need to remove the taboo around menstruation around such areas. So, we decided what better way to help these girls than by teaching them good practices and providing them with sanitary napkins.”
The curriculum for hygienic menstrual practices includes modules on reproductive biology and other relevant information about keeping their bodies clean while they are menstruating. Suhani says, “We’ve included information from UNICEF and Menstrupedia in the curriculum. But we also try and remove local superstitions/taboos surrounding the topic through playful intervention in the form of games and questionnaires. If we manage to successfully train the volunteers at Shiksharth, it would mean that our project would be sustainable over a long period of time as well.”
You can help 1,000 girls in Sukma continue their higher education despite having their periods, by donating 
Sangeeta Awasthi, 35, is a responsible community leader, who has taken on the task of ensuring proper sanitation and water supply in her slum at Baba Ghat, flanking the Ganges in Kanpur.[/caption]
Two decades ago, when she got married to Rajendra, little did she know that she would have to go through the daily humiliation of relieving herself in public.
Sangeeta Awasthi speaks to her neighbours about availing benefits under the Swachh Bharat Mission to build toilets.[/caption]
She suggested that each household contribute money so that they could get one broken-down handpump restored and re-bore the other. After much effort, 13 families came on board, contributing Rs 50 each, enabling her to get the required repairs done.
At the same time, Awasthi also met with the Corporator, a local member of the municipal corporation, and demanded that piped water supply be made available to them. Within two months, the civil work was done and today, all 85 houses in the community are enjoying piped water supply.
As a responsible community leader, Awasthi attends every meeting called by the administration or Shramik Bharati to discuss any development work concerning her slum. Presently, the biggest issue for them is the shortage of space for individual toilets. In fact, that proved to be a major challenge for Kalpana Anand, 33, too, as she took up the cause in her Ambedkar Nagar slum in Vijay Nagar area of Kanpur.
Like Awasthi, she wasn’t happy to discover that her marital home didn’t have a toilet. “I used to curse my destiny as I was forced to defecate in the open,” she says. By the time Anand was 21, she was already a mother of four daughters and as her girls grew up, her worry about their safety and health only increased. She was fearful because she was aware of the risks of going to isolated places at odd hours to relieve oneself.
Constructing a toilet at home was always beyond their reach as her husband, Ram Bharti, is a small-time tailor. But after sitting through a meeting organised by Shramik Bharati, she realised that she could easily get one constructed with the Rs 8,000 incentive provisioned under the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM).Not only did she apply for it, she started motivating others to follow suit.
Kalpana Anand, 33, has spearheaded a campaign against open defecation in her Ambedkar Nagar slum.[/caption]
She encouraged 97 families to fill up the form for availing the incentive; of these, 45 have individual toilets now.
“I do not handle the money but facilitate in filling up forms and the purchase of building material at cheaper cost,” shares Anand. As the news of sanitation work in Ambedkar Nagar slum travelled to other areas, people started asking her to intervene in their localities as well. “I have understood that awareness is the key to bringing change,” she observes.
Indeed, that’s the approach that Shramik Bharti has adopted wholeheartedly. It has created teams of dedicated field staff that are deployed in the six zones of Kanpur Municipal Corporation as well as the city’s Cantonment Board. Each zone has nearly 80 slums or slum-like localities. Officially, though, as per the list of District Urban Development Authority (DUDA), there are 412 slums in Kanpur.
“Our objective is to develop citizen leaders like Awasthi and Anand and accordingly, we have designed the awareness and advocacy programme,” explains Rakesh Pandey, Chief Executive Officer, Shramik Bharti.
Kiron Srivastava, 19, from Shivraj Singh ka Purva has not only motivated 200 of the 260 households in her neighourhood to avail of government subsidy for toilet construction she has also submitted an application for building a sewer line.[/caption]
She started working as a community volunteer when she was only 16. She says, “When I had first heard the didis from Shramik Bharati talk about sanitation, I was drawn to the discussion as I felt that associating with them would give a meaningful direction to my life.”
Srivastava’s devoted attitude - she capably balances her college and social work - has prompted the local Corporator to induct her into the ward committee that supervises all related infrastructure development. Ever since then, she has been working tirelessly for the betterment of 260 households. “I have got 200 forms filled for toilet construction under the SBM, of which 70 toilets have been constructed,” she informs us with a hint of pride. She has also submitted an application for building a sewer line.
Clearly, this trio has proven that when women put their hearts into bettering their lived realities nothing can stop them.
Biotoilets[/caption]
Toilet Awareness Campaign[/caption]
Eram Scientific's E-toilets[/caption]
A Bamboo Toilet[/caption]
Inside an UDDT[/caption]
A view of the Toilet Museum[/caption]
Here you can find information about kings who had their thrones fitted with commodes, how elephants were potty-trained, toilets that can massage constipation away, and toilet models that range from the mundane to the ornamental to the bizarre.
Established in 1992, the collection includes a commode shaped like a treasure chest (used by the English when out camping, with the express purpose of fooling robbers), some more modern varieties of commodes that look like a printer/fax machines, a toilet in the form of a stack of books, a toy-commode from China, and even an electric toilet from USA. A highlight is the replica of the throne of French King Louis XIV (1638-1715), which also served as a toilet seat.
A replica of the "Rumble Throne" of French King Louis XIV[/caption]
For history aficionados, the place is a treasure trove of information containing hidden gems about the use of toilets through the ages, including how the lack of toilets brought the downfall of Persians against the Greeks in the 3rd Persian War in 480 BC. Many of the Persians apparently perished in a plague caused by the improper disposal of their excrement. Roman Emperor Heliogabas was assassinated in a toilet in 222 AD. Not many people would know that the ancient Hindu scriptures of Manusmriti and Vishnupuran lay out different sets of “toilet etiquettes” for married and unmarried people, or that they even list such recommendations.
Literature lovers may want to check out the section dedicated to literature inspired by the activity of defecating. There are also remedies for constipation, a display of tacky toilet signs, and information about the most expensive toilet in the world.
Model of ornamental toilet[/caption]
The walls are dedicated to the history of sewage systems and toilets, displayed chronologically from the ancient, medieval to the modern eras. The museum documents how the development of sanitation facilities parallels the development of civilization – from chamber pots that were cleaned manually to toilets installed on the top floors of houses that would deposit the waste into rivers and ditches below.
The 19th century was known as the “Century of the Toilet,” because of the rapid development in sanitation facilities. Over time, some inventors went beyond the requirements of comfort when creating designs for heeding the call of nature. In 1929, an American electrician patented a seat that was warmed using electricity.
A toilet used in the 1930s.[/caption]
In India, public toilets were constructed only in 1940, but were soon rendered unusable because of lack of maintenance. The courtyard outside the museum exhibit models of toilets developed by Sulabh International that are used across India today, as the country wages a battle against open defecation.
The museum is open every day, except on national holidays, from 10:30 am to 5 pm during winter (Nov 1 to Mar 30) and from 10 am to 5 pm in summer (Apr 1 to Oct 30).
The model of a porcelain toilet with a lion pedestal.[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_75521" align="alignnone" width="1200"]
Porta Potti, a mobile toilet used during camping[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_75520" align="alignnone" width="1200"]
Replica of a floral porcelain toilet[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_75525" align="alignnone" width="1200"]
Replica of a European wooden toilet[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_75534" align="alignnone" width="1200"]
Toilet Etiquettes from the Manu Smriti and Vishnupuran[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_75512" align="alignnone" width="1200"]
An incinolet electric toilet used by U.S. Naval forces in submarines.[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_75514" align="alignnone" width="1200"]
Cartoons on display at the Toilet Museum[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_75516" align="alignnone" width="1200"]
A wall in the Toilet Museum displaying information about toilets in ancient societies[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_75515" align="alignnone" width="1200"]
The courtyard of the Toilet Museum.[/caption]
Every Rs. 2,000 contributed by you will help get us 10% closer to laying the foundations of a Swachh Bharat starting from each household.
Until 2012, the village lacked road connectivity, electricity and clean drinking water. Shiv Prabha has aided the development of Lonwadi for the last four years.
They brought in solar light and street lights, proper tar roads have been built, irrigation pumps have been installed. Lonwadi got its first digital school under this NGO efforts.
