Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently visited Germany from June 26 to June 28 for the 48th G7 summit. On his second day of the visit i.e., on June 27, PM Modi interacted with the Indian diaspora in Munich where he listed numerous “achievements” of the Indian government. In the hour-long community programme, PM Modi took the stage at around 21 minutes and delivered a 33-minute-long speech, where he talked about India’s growth story and highlighted the various “achievements” of his government, such as India being “open-defecation free (ODF)” and that “every village” in the country is electrified. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0azNpHROXFk?start=1324] However, amidst the interaction where the PM lauded the Indian community in Munich for promoting India’s “success story” and called them India’s “ambassadors”, lied half-truths, exaggerated assertions and falsehoods. At 27:18 minutes in his speech, the PM said, “Today, every village in India is open defecation free.” However, the ground reality is at odds with PM Modi’s assertion. Under the Swachh Bharat Mission, all villages, gram panchayats, districts, states and union territories in India declared themselves “open-defecation free” (ODF) by October 2, 2019. This is mentioned on the Swachh Bharat Mission website and was also reported by various media outlets. How does the government define ODF? The government under Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) terms ODF as “the termination of faecal-oral transmission”, defined by: 1) no visible faeces found in the environment/village; and 2) every household as well as public/community institution using safe technology options for the disposal of faeces To understand whether India has actually become open defecation free as suggested by the PM, we looked at two data sources – the fifth National Family Health Survey (2019 – 2021), and the third round of the National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey (NARSS). NFHS data The National Family Health Survey-5 (2019 – 2021) or NFHS-5, published in March 2022, provides percentage distribution of households by the type of toilet facility available, and also the access to toilets based on religion, caste and wealth distribution. As per the latest data, 83% of households have access to a toilet facility in the country, and 17% do not use any toilet facility. [It is important to note that the NFHS figures are usually rounded up, hence the figure could vary when tallied.] When we compared this with the data provided in NFHS-4 (2015 – 2016) report, there is definitely an improvement. As per NFHS-4, 39% of households practised open defecation compared to the latest data of only 17% of households practising open defecation. According to NFHS-5, among the states/UTs, access to a toilet facility is lowest in Bihar (62%), followed by Jharkhand (70%) and Odisha (71%). Despite improvement, the latest NFHS report does not indicate that the country is 100% ODF. National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey (NARSS) data The NARSS round 3 (2019 – 2020) report carried various indicators for households with toilets. The report reads, “The information on accessibility to toilet facility for the household was collected through a combination of four responses which included: i) Own toilet: Households with access to a toilet which is exclusively used by members of the household ii) Shared toilet: Household with access to toilet used by multiple families iii) Community toilets: Households with access to a public toilet facility (toilet is open to the general public); and iv) No toilet access: Households do not have access to any toilet (family members usually defecate in the bush, fields, or other locations).” As per the report, the percentage of households practising open defecation decreased from 6.7% in NARSS Round-2 (2018-19) to 5.6% in NARSS Round-3 (2019-20) at the national level. In NARSS Round-1 (2017-18), the percentage of households practising open defecation was reported to be 24%. Below we have added a chart to visually represent the trend line. According to UNICEF, in 2015, nearly half of India’s population, around 568 million people practised open defecation. The number came down to an estimated 450 million by 2019. UNICEF credits the government’s flagship programme, the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), for the achievement. Despite discrepancies in data provided by various government reports, we don’t see any surveys mentioning India as 100% open defecation free. However, we do notice a trend that shows a decline in the practice of open defecation over the years. At 27:30 minutes, the PM said that electricity has reached every village in the country.