News Nine | Toilets 2.0 campaign launched: All you need to know about it

Nov 22,2022

Union Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) Hardeep Singh Puri recently launched a Toilets 2.0 campaign on the occasion of World Toilet Day. The campaign aims to change the look of public and community toilets in urban India through collective action, including citizens and urban local bodies. At the launch of the event, the Minister said, "India is set to go beyond the ODF narrative. Clean and safe public restrooms and public spaces will improve the experience and quality of public life and that is why I am delighted to launch Toilets 2.0 campaign." He expressed confidence that stakeholders would act together to make the campaign a success. In this article, we will talk about what this campaign is all about.

What is the Toilets 2.0 campaign? Since the Mission's inception, the rich heritage of sanitation has included accessibility, safety, dignity, aspiration, and inclusivity. During the event, the collective experience, learning sense of responsibility, ownership, and pride derived from the extraordinary legacy of the Swachh Bharat Mission Urban came to the fore. The events reaffirmed all stakeholders' commitment to amplifying this legacy through the Toilets 2.0 Campaign. 

The campaign has five thematic areas 
People for Toilets 
Partners for Toilets 
Design Toilets 
Rate your Toilet 
My thoughts 

People for Toilets: It is an inter-city competition envisaged for cleaning and maintaining the community and public toilets in which top-performing cities will be recognised. 

Partners for Toilets: The objective of this theme is to forge partnerships with potential organisations for the adoption of community and public toilets for interim cleaning, annual operations and maintenance, one-time financial aid, beautification activities, innovation, feedback etc. The partnerships, including public-private partnership models, corporate sponsorship etc, should provide the impetus for the sustainability of the functionality of the community and public toilets in cities and enhance toilet users' experience. 

Design Toilets: It is the third theme and is being organised in collaboration with the Council of Architecture. Students of architecture and practicing architects for aspirational toilets in the two categories of Public toilets and Community toilets will be invited by the Council of Architecture. Based on the entries, top designs will be selected and created into a collection for cities' consideration to adopt the designs.

Rate your Toilet: It is for promoting user feedback to improve public and community toilets. 

My thoughts: It is a general public survey among citizens on public toilets across the country. A questionnaire will be available on the MyGov platform for the public to answer.