Modi has not quite walked the talk

Narendra Modi's recent comment to the effect that building toilets must be more of a priority than building temples may have created quite a flutter, but a look at census data suggests that as chief minister of his state, he has not quite walked the talk.

The data shows that if one were to rank all 35 states and union territories according to the percentage of households without toilet facilities, 21 states and UTs fare better than Gujarat and only 13 do worse on this count. Equally importantly, even in terms of the improvement over the 2001 census Gujarat's performance is at best average.

According to the 2011 census data, more than 43% households in Gujarat didn't have any latrines. In rural Gujarat, that figure is 67%, which puts in 24th spot. In Lakshadweep, Kerala and Mizoram, more than 90% of households had toilets. The percentage of no-toilet households was 10.5% for Delhi and 10.7% for Manipur- ranked fourth and fifth in the list. All the north-eastern states, Goa, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Daman & Diu, Chandigarh and Puducherry did better on this count than Gujarat.

Worse than Gujarat on this list are some states you would expect - Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Rajasthan. But, interestingly, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh are also worse than Modi's state. However, these latter states have done better in terms of improving the situation since 2001. The erstwhile BIMARU states, thus, are the only ones that were both worse off in 2011 than Gujarat and had improved less.

The data further reveals that Haryana, Daman and Diu, West Bengal and Himachal Pradesh were all ranked below Gujarat in 2001, but were ranked better in 2011.

When it comes to places of worship, on the other hand, Gujarat had a higher proportion of them than most states and union territories. In 2011, the census shows the state had 1.8 lakh places of worship, which was about 1.2% of all 'houses' in the state. Among the bigger states, those with 10 seats or more in the Lok Sabha, only Assam (1.8%), Karnataka (1.4%) and Rajasthan (1.4%) had a higher proportion of what the census counts as 'houses' being used as places of worship.

In fact, Gujarat had more places of worship than Bihar, Tamil Nadu or Madhya Pradesh, all states that are significantly bigger in size. Haryana, incidentally, had the lowest proportion among major states, just 0.5%, of 'houses' being used for worship.

Households with no toilets (% of total households in 2011)