30 second read. Written by a grade 6 student

ODF stands for Open Defecation Free (Defecation means the discharge of waste matter from the body – meaning going to the toilet). In India millions of people defecate in the open, because they do not have toilets. In 2015, India was reported to be the country with the highest number of people doing this in the open.

In 2016, about 70 percent of Indian households didn’t have toilets, be it in rural India or in the city slums. Can you imagine that about 60 percent of the India’s 1.2 billion people were still defecating in the open? Prime Minister Modi addressed this issue and planned to make India ODF – that is Open Defecation Free.

When the Swachh Bharat Mission was launched on October 2nd 2014, its primary aim (as laid out by the Prime Minister) was to make India open-defecation-free by Oct. 02, 2019, by making at least 12 crore toilets in rural and urban homes. Recently, speaking at the Swachch Bharat Diwas programme in Ahmedabad, the Prime Minister said rural India and its villages are now open defecation free.

He said that more than 11 crore toilets have been built in 60 months, helping more than 60 crore people to use toilets.