Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
Claim
Infographic shows India to have the worst open-defecation numbers in the world and being the only country that has more than 1,000 people practising open defecation per square kilometre.
Fact
The viral infographic is found to be fabricated.
An infographic, headlined “Open Defecation, 2023” and purportedly credited to the “Alberta Institute of Data Collection”, is doing the rounds of social media, portraying India in extremely poor light and in line with the intense online vitriol targeting Indians following the recent controversy in the US over the H-1B visa programme. The heated debate over the visa programme, which permits American businesses to employ foreign workers for key positions, has divided the Republican camp into two sides, pitting business figures such as Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy against immigration hardliners, who called it detrimental to American workers and principles.
According to the viral infographic, which shows the open-defecation rates of countries around the world, India tops the list by a large margin, allegedly being the only country that has more than 1,000 people practising open defecation per square kilometre. The archived version of the post can be seen here.
Fact Check
Newschecker noticed that the purported infographic was credited to the “Alberta Institute of Data Collection”, following which we ran a relevant keyword search, which did not lead us to any credible news reports or official records about such a study. We also found that there was no institution by the name of “Alberta Institute of Data Collection”, further indicating that the infographic was fabricated.
Several users pointed out in the comments that the infographic was fake, leading us to an X post comparing countrywise data on the share of population practising open defecation between 2000 and 2022. The comparison showed that India has significantly reduced the prevalence of the practice of open-defecation by some 85% in just 22 years and that it now does better than Sub-Saharan Africa. The user, who posted the comparison on September 5, 2024, credited the data to the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (JMP) (2024) with major processing by online scientific publication Our World in Data.
Taking a cue from this, we came across the latest WHO/UNICEF JMP write-up and graphic on open defecation, showing the proportion of population practising open defecation in 2022. We can clearly see that there are several African countries faring worse than India, with a few having over 50% of the population practising open defecation.
According to WHO’s latest data (2022), 11% of India’s population practises open defecation, well below Eritrea (67%), Niger (65%), Chad (63%), South Sudan (60%), Namibia (37%), among other countries.
India was not even among the top countries with highest open defecation (as per latest 2022 UN, WHO data), as 17 of the top 20 having the highest open defecation rates were found to be from Africa.
“Cambodia, Ethiopia, Nepal and India saw the largest fall in outdoor defecation since the year 2000, reducing it from affecting around 70 to 85 percent of the population to seven to 20 percent. The latter country has been particularly ambitious in installing proper toilets. Before Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, more than 60 percent of India’s population didn’t have access to a household toilet. Since then, billions of dollars have been invested under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (“Clean India”) campaign. According to UN numbers, open defecation was reduced to affecting 11 percent of the Indian population in 2022,” read a Statista report, dated November 15, 2024 and based on WHO data. A similar World Bank blog, dated November 17, 2023, on the occasion of World Toilet Day, stated that while open defecation is most concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, there has been marked shift in proportions: 67 percent of people practicing open defecation used to reside in South Asia (mainly India) and 17 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2000. But today, 44 percent are in South Asia and 47 percent are in Sub-Saharan Africa.
We noticed that none of the infographics nor reports depicted the country-wise open-defecation data as the number of people practising it per square kilometre, further proving that the viral infographic was fake. Also, the latest data is from 2022 and not 2023, as seen in the viral infographic.
Also, if we consider 11% of India’s population in 2022, which was 1.4172 billion or 1417.2 million, it comes to 155.89 million. Considering India’s total area of 3,287,263 square km, the number of people practising open defecation per square km in the country would come to around 47 per square kilometre, significantly well below the rate of more than 1,000 per square km as claimed in the viral posts.
Also Read: Donald Trump’s Latest Statement On H-1B Visa Debate? Viral Video Is Old
Conclusion
Viral infographic showing India to have the worst open-defecation numbers in the world was found to be fabricated.
Result: False
Sources
WHO data
WHO/UNICEF JMP data
Statista blog
World Bank blog
If you would like us to fact-check a claim, give feedback or lodge a complaint, WhatsApp us at 9999499044 or email us at checkthis@newschecker.in. You can also visit the Contact Us page and fill out the form. Follow our WhatsApp channel for more updates.
Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
