Khatija, 40, a resident of JP Colony in New Delhi’s Rama Krishna Puram area walks half a mile (about 1km) every day to Nehru Ekta Colony to use a community toilet.

A man carrying water while going to defecate in the open in Greater Noida on the outskirts of New Delhi PHOTO: RS Iyer/AP]

“There is not a single toilet in our colony,” she told Al Jazeera.

“Every day, there is a queue outside the toilet and people have to wait for their turns. Sometimes for more than half an hour,” Khatija said. “Those who are in an emergency defecate in open. What choice do we have?” she asked.

Wednesday marks 150 years of iconic Indian freedom fighter Mahatma Gandhi’s birth, a day dedicated by the Indian government to its sanitation goals.

Five years ago, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the ambitious Swachh Bharat (Clean India) campaign, he had announced October 2, 2019, as the day India will be free of open defecation free (ODF) – a claim he made in a speech on Wednesday evening.

“In 60 months, 600 million people have been given access to toilets, more than 110 million toilets have been built. The whole world is amazed to hear this,” Modi told a crowd in Ahmedabad city.

Meanwhile, in Khatija’s neighbouring colony, things looked no different.

Dimple Peter, a local social worker, claimed that for a population of more than 800 people, there is just one community toilet with 10 latrines, according to Aljazeera report.

“The toilets are often stinky and dirty,” she told Al Jazeera. “Sometimes people think it is better to defecate in open as stinky toilets may lead to diseases.”

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Residents said they are forced to defecate in the open as there are not enough community toilets to cater for a large number of people. They also said the toilets remain closed at night.

“The community toilets remain open from 5 am till 9 pm. Where will the people go during the night hours?” asked Ahsan-ud Din, 40, who runs a poultry shop.

ODF was the main objective of the Clean India campaign, which aimed to build 120 million toilets across the country by October 2, 2019.

Its other goals included cleaning up streets and other public infrastructure, achieving 100 per cent door-to-door waste collection, building solid waste management plants in each town, and persuading Indians to adopt better sanitation practices.

“A clean India would be the best tribute India could pay to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150 birth anniversary in 2019,” Modi had said while launching the campaign in 2014.

The next five years saw numerous politicians, sportspersons and Bollywood stars participating in a government-sponsored publicity blitz to promote the Clean India campaign, involving millions of dollars.

Before Modi’s speech on Wednesday, the Indian government had already claimed constructing over 100 million of the 120 million toilets planned across the country.

Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) director VK Jindal told Al Jazeera that toilets had been built in all urban centres and the target had been 100 per cent achieved.

So why were people still defecating in the open in the national capital? Jindal blamed “the migrant population which does not stay permanently at one place”.

Vanguard News Nigeria.