NEW DELHI: More than 12 years after Supreme Court mandated separate toilets for girl students in schools across India, only Goa, Delhi, Chandigarh and Puducherry are in full compliance of the order while the north-eastern states and Jammu & Kashmir lag the national average of 98% in schools implementing the order.
SC for the first time in 2011, again in 2012 and 2014 and periodically thereafter has pushed states and Union territories to provide separate toilets for girls on the belief that such a facility in schools encourages girls to attend schools. Later, it had on a PIL filed by Jaya Thakur sought a status report on availability of toilet facilities in schools and on providing sanitary pads to adolescent schoolgirls.
In an affidavit, Union govt has informed SC that across India, 97.5% of schools – govt, govt-aided and private – have provided separate toilets for girls, with Delhi, Goa, Chandigarh and Puducherry achieving cent per cent implementation of the SC orders.
It said while West Bengal provided separate toilet for girls in 99.9% schools, the figures for other states are – Uttar Pradesh 98.8%, Tamil Nadu 99.7%, Sikkim 99.5%, Kerala 99.6%, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Punjab 99.6% each, Karnataka 98.7%, Madhya Pradesh 98.6%, Maharashtra 97.8%, Rajasthan 98%, Bihar 98.5% and Odisha 96.1%.
North-eastern states lagged behind the national average. Meghalaya has provided separate toilets for girls in 81.8% schools, Manipur in 87% schools, Assam 88.5% Tripura 91.5%, Nagaland 90.6%, Mizoram 93%, and Arunachal Pradesh 91.4% schools. Jammu & Kashmir has provided separate toilets for girls in 89.2% of its schools.
Centre said under the Samagra Shiksha scheme, launched in 2018, in over 10 lakh govt schools, 16 lakh toilets for boys and 17.5 lakh toilets for girls have been made available. In 82,400 govt-aided schools, there are 2.5 lakh toilets for boys and 2.9 lakh toilets for girls.
On the implementation of the Nov 2023 order directing provisioning of sanitary pads for adolescent schoolgirls, Centre said of the 35 states and UTs, 19 are providing it free of cost, nine are providing it at a subsidised rate (Assam, Himachal Pradesh, J&K, Kerala, Maharashtra, Manipur, Nagaland, Uttarakhand and West Bengal), six are adopting a mix of the free and subsidised schemes, while Bihar and MP are transferring the money directly to the bank account of beneficiaries.