New Delhi: The World Bank has withdrawn three papers, including one that flagged a “most concerning” decline in the use of toilets in rural India between 2018 and 2021, after the central government allegedly questioned their findings, sources in the global financial institution told ThePrint.
The papers were withdrawn between 29 September and 15 October.
According to one of the withdrawn papers, “Progress on Sanitation in Rural India: Reconciling Diverse Evidence”, usage of toilets built in rural India under the Modi government’s flagship Swachh Bharat Mission declined by 12 percentage points between 2018-19 and 2020-21.
The paper noted that it had assembled multiple independent data sources to paint the “most comprehensive picture to date of progress in sanitation in rural India in the last decade”.
The two other now-withdrawn papers were titled “What Lies Beneath? An Assessment of India’s Groundwater Quality And Monitoring Systems”, and “Lifting the lid: Process and Delivery of the Swachh Bharat Mission”. The papers were part of the World Bank’s Policy Research Working Papers Series. ThePrint has copies of all three papers.
The decline in usage of toilets, said the first paper, was most pronounced among the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) communities — 20 and 24 percentage points, respectively.
According to the paper, 87 percent of India’s rural population was regularly using any toilet by 2018-19. While this marked a jump of 41 percentage points since the launch of Swachh Bharat Mission in 2015, the subsequent backsliding implied that “a full quarter of the country’s rural population was not regularly using toilets by 2021,” the paper added.
The Swachh Bharat Mission was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 15 August, 2014, in his inaugural Independence Day address.
A second withdrawn World Bank paper attributed the decline in toilet usage to slackening of institutional structures supporting the Swachh Bharat Mission owing to the political and administrative leadership “moving on” after the “sense of urgency eased”, among other factors.
When contacted, the World Bank — while sidestepping queries on whether it acted in response to pressure from the Government of India — acknowledged that the papers, published in September and uploaded on its website, have been retracted due to “technical and procedural issues”.
However, government officials and researchers involved in drafting the papers told ThePrint that the World Bank faced a “lot of heat” from the central government after the papers were published.
A World Bank functionary told ThePrint on condition of anonymity that the papers were published after they underwent the organisation’s internal review and approval processes. But officially, the global financial body maintained that the papers were withdrawn due to technical issues.
“On your query, there are some technical and procedural issues, which have come to the notice of the approvers — these are being reviewed internally. We will send you a link once the papers are reviewed and uploaded,” Sudip Mozumder, World Bank (South Asia Region) lead external affairs advisor, told ThePrint.
Questionnaires sent to the Ministry of Jal Shakti and the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) via email and texts went unanswered. While the Ministry of Jal Shakti is the nodal agency for Swachh Bharat Mission (Rural), the Fund Bank & Asian Development Bank division of the DEA deals with matters concerning the World Bank.
A senior official of the Jal Shakti Ministry, however, disputed the World Bank reports, saying the ministry’s own Swachh Survekshan Grameen surveys, carried out by independent bodies in 2022 and 2023, have shown that usage stood at 95.4 percent in 2022 — the first time this survey was conducted — and 94.4 percent in 2023.
“The World Bank reports rely on the National Family Health Survey, which has a flawed methodology when it comes to capturing usage of toilets. Our own surveys clearly show there has been no decline. Why do they (World Bank) want to publish reports based on flawed and old data?” said the official who spoke to ThePrint on condition of anonymity.
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Decline in toilet use
According to “Progress on Sanitation in Rural India: Reconciling Diverse Evidence”, authored by Urmila Chatterjee, Juan Munoz and Iman Sen of the World Bank, and Mushfiq Mobarak, professor of economics at Yale University, the fact that 100 million toilets were constructed in the first five years of the Swachh Bharat Mission was a “breathtaking achievement” but “toilet use does not always automatically follow from toilet construction”.
“The recent negative trends are most concerning and raise questions about sustainability. By 2018-19, 87 percent of India’s rural population was regularly using any toilet (unimproved or improved) — a jump of 41 percentage points in just three years,” the paper highlighted.
It said that even the regular usage of “own, improved toilets” doubled during this period to 74 percent from 37 percent.
“By historical standards, this represents extraordinary progress achieved within a short period of time. However, that progress has not been sustained,” it added.
The paper pointed out that, since 2018-19, regular use of any toilet has actually decreased by 12 percentage points. “This backsliding implies that a full quarter of the country’s rural population was not regularly using toilets by 2021,” it added.
The researchers noted in the paper that “we are the first to document this reversal by triangulating evidence from diverse data sources” namely the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), National Sample Survey (NSS), National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey (NARSS) and Swachh Bharat Mission Management Information System (MIS).
SCs, STs most affected
The paper pointed out that the first phase (2015-19) of the Swachh Bharat Mission saw large improvements, including a phenomenal increase in regular use of toilets among SCs and STs between 2015-16 and 2018-19: “51 percentage points for SCs and 58 percentage points for STs”.
According to the paper, by 2018-19 (NARSS round 2), regular toilet use among these groups had reached almost the same level as the General category.
“Since 2018-19, these gains are reversing,” it added.
The paper highlighted that, while regular use of toilets declined for all groups, the decline was most pronounced for the SCs and the STs.
“There was a 20-percentage point decline in regular use of toilets for the SCs and a 24-percentage point decline for the STs compared to a decline of 9 and 5 percentage points for the Other Backward Caste and General categories,” added the paper.
Challenges in water & sanitation sector
Among the other two withdrawn papers, “Lifting the Lid: Process and Delivery of the Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin)”, was also mildly critical of the political and administrative class.
It pointed out that “once the sense of urgency was eased, and proactive leadership across political and administrative levels moved on, some of the institutional structures that supported Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) were not sustained”.
“The intensity of staff involvement was also found to have reduced over the years. The district and block consultants hired in SBM(G)-I (Swachh Bharat Mission Phase I) have dwindled across states. The target-driven nature overtook the need for quality and long-term-sustainable strategies that the programme required,” it highlighted.
The paper also flagged “wide discrepancies in the payments made to Swachhagrahis” — village-level volunteers described by the Jal Shakti Ministry as “foot soldiers” of the Swachh Bharat Mission.
“The study found several instances of delayed, inadequate, or no payments despite promises made by the district administration. This resulted in deeply disappointed staff, some of whom were reported to have quit the programme midway,” said the paper.
“Officials discussed how these posed challenges in terms of retaining staff for the implementation of SBM (G)-II (Swachh Bharat Mission Phase II),” it added.
The third retracted paper, “What Lies Beneath? An Assessment of India’s Groundwater Quality And Monitoring Systems”, argued that groundwater quality monitoring in India “is significantly incomplete” as it “leaves critical gaps in public information that may overestimate, underestimate or even completely miss the extent and severity of contamination”.
According to the paper, groundwater contamination by fluoride, nitrate and other chemicals appears to be more extensive and severe than generally perceived with potentially serious health, water and food security implications.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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