Theme 5 — What Keeps Sanitation Working
From infrastructure provision to reliable sanitation services
Sanitation infrastructure succeeds only when it remains operational, affordable and trusted by the people it is intended to serve.
This programme studies the daily realities that determine whether sanitation continues to function after construction: staffing, cleaning, water and energy supply, maintenance, repairs, financing, institutional responsibility, worker conditions and user experience.
Drawing on Sulabh International's long operational history, the Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak Research Foundation will examine sanitation as a continuously delivered service — not simply as a physical asset.
Our central research question is: What does it take to keep sanitation clean, safe, affordable and functional — every day, for everyone and over decades?
Sulabh's principal research advantage is not limited to the number of sanitation facilities it has helped establish. It lies in its experience of operating and supporting different sanitation-service models across public spaces, informal settlements, schools, institutions, transport hubs, markets, hospitals and pilgrimage locations.
This diverse implementation base allows DBPRF to investigate how sanitation requirements change according to location and footfall, hours of operation, user population, water and power availability, institutional ownership, staffing arrangements, revenue potential, and containment and treatment systems.
It also highlights recurring challenges such as pump failure, water interruption, caretaker absence, emergency desludging, septic-tank overflow during demand surges and delays in obtaining repairs or replacement components.
The Foundation will convert this operational experience into structured, longitudinal evidence.
Internal operational evidence already identifies important relationships between:
Caretaker presence → cleaning frequency → service uptime → user confidence → water availability → financial performance
A medium-sized public convenience may serve approximately 600 users per day, while high-footfall locations can operate close to their intended capacity. Facilities at railway stations and major urban locations may remain open for 16 to 24 hours. These facilities offer a research environment for studying footfall and staffing requirements, cleaning frequency and user satisfaction, peak demand and waiting time, caretaker presence and operational uptime, repair response and service interruption, facility configuration and gendered use, and revenue, expenditure and service quality.
International sanitation research is moving from counting infrastructure towards measuring service quality, inclusion and safely managed outcomes. The World Bank's Citywide Inclusive Sanitation approach emphasises service delivery, institutional responsibility and management across the complete sanitation chain.[1]
A systematic review of shared sanitation in informal settlements found that successful use depends on factors including cleanliness, privacy, accessibility, safety and the quality of management.[2]
ICNSS 2026 connects sanitation technology with implementation pathways, financing, governance, inclusion, public health, climate resilience and resource recovery.[7]
A facility should not be classified as functional simply because the building exists or its entrance is open. The Foundation will measure required and actual opening hours, number of usable toilet seats, water and soap availability, cleaning frequency, staff presence, breakdown frequency, duration of service interruption, repair-response time, waiting time, complaint resolution and safe desludging. A principal unit of measurement will be clean, safe and usable seat-hours.
Sanitation costing frequently concentrates on construction while underestimating the cost of delivering a dependable service. DBPRF will develop lifecycle costing covering capital costs, daily operating costs, maintenance costs, sanitation-chain costs and long-term rehabilitation costs. The programme will calculate cost per visit, cost per operating hour, cost per usable seat-hour and cost by facility type.[1]
A modest fee may be manageable for an occasional traveller but burdensome for a household dependent on a community toilet, a street vendor using the facility several times daily, a homeless person or a person with a health condition requiring frequent access. Research will compare pay-per-use charges, household passes, monthly subscriptions, employer-funded access, municipal vouchers and targeted exemptions.
High-footfall public toilets can generate stronger revenue, while facilities in informal settlements may not recover their operating costs. DBPRF will classify facilities as commercially strong, operationally viable, socially necessary but financially weak, and strategic or emergency — and determine how much cross-subsidy is possible.[1]
Small defects can accumulate until a toilet becomes difficult or impossible to use. Research will document frequently failing components, useful life of pumps and fixtures, seasonal failure patterns, availability of spare parts and the cost and effectiveness of preventive maintenance compared with reactive repair.
Users experience smell, cleanliness, privacy, waiting time, staff behaviour, lighting, safety, accessibility and confidence that the facility will be open. Research will examine why people choose or avoid a facility, what different users understand as clean, whether charges influence expectations, and what makes a person trust a sanitation facility enough to enter, use it and return.[2]
Average satisfaction scores can conceal exclusion. Dedicated research will examine the experiences of women and adolescent girls, transgender and gender-diverse people, persons with disabilities, older people, children and caregivers, homeless and migrant populations, street vendors and informal workers, and people requiring frequent toilet access.
Caretakers, cleaners, supervisors and technical operators are part of the sanitation infrastructure. DBPRF will study staffing requirements, cleaning workload, wages and contracts, training and certification, protective equipment and occupational exposure, and whether better working conditions produce measurable improvements in cleanliness, uptime and user satisfaction.[6]
In many build-and-transfer models, the school or institution becomes responsible for cleaning, water, repairs and pit management after construction. The central question is: does transfer of ownership also transfer the financial and institutional capacity required to maintain the service?[3][4][5]
The programme will actively study failure — closed or abandoned facilities, repeated water and electricity failures, failed revenue models, contractor withdrawal, treatment-system breakdown and institutional disputes. Service continuity will also be studied during heatwaves, floods, droughts, power cuts and disease outbreaks.
DBPRF will evaluate footfall counters, water-level sensors, pump alerts, digital cleaning records, QR-based user feedback and municipal monitoring dashboards. Digital systems will always be validated through human inspection — a sensor may confirm water is present but cannot determine privacy, dignity, odour or staff behaviour.[7]
World Bank. Citywide Inclusive Sanitation Initiative.
The framework shifts attention from infrastructure construction alone towards equitable service delivery, institutional accountability and safe management across the sanitation chain.
View sourceSprouse, Lauren, et al. (2024). Shared Sanitation in Informal Settlements: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Prevalence, Preferences, and Quality. International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health, Volume 260, Article 114392.
The review examines the prevalence, experience, quality and barriers associated with shared sanitation in informal settlements.
View articleMinistry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India. (2024). Clean Toilets Campaign 2024: Campaign Guidelines.
The guidelines address toilet operations, cleaning responsibilities, caretakers, signage, user feedback and remedial action.
View guidelinesMinistry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India. (2025). Swachh Survekshan 2025–26 Toolkit.
The toolkit evaluates whether public and community toilets are functional, maintained, accessible and equipped with appropriate waste-management and complaint-response systems.
View toolkitMinistry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India. (2021). Swachh Bharat Mission–Urban 2.0: Operational Guidelines.
The guidelines address public and community toilets, inclusive sanitation, operations and maintenance, faecal-sludge management and sustainable urban sanitation.
View guidelinesInternational Labour Organization, WaterAid, World Health Organization and World Bank. (2019). Health, Safety and Dignity of Sanitation Workers: An Initial Assessment.
The report documents occupational exposure, informal working conditions, social stigma and actions required to protect the health, safety, rights and dignity of sanitation workers.
View reportGlobal Sanitation Center of Excellence, IIT Palakkad, and International Water Association. (2026). Second International Conference on Non-Sewered Sanitation Systems — ICNSS 2026.
The conference agenda covers implementation pathways, policy, governance, financing, inclusion, health, climate resilience and sustainable non-sewered sanitation systems.
View conference research agendaSulabh International. Additional Sulabh Evidence for Theme 5: Operations, Affordability and Human Experience. Internal working paper, unpublished.
The document contains preliminary operational evidence on public conveniences, school toilets, staffing, water and energy use, lifecycle costs, user charges, cross-subsidy, maintenance and service failure.
Internal operational figures are being validated against Sulabh International's current facility, financial and programme records before public release.
UnpublishedPhotographs from the field will be added to this page soon.