Every morning when he’s in Delhi, the prime minister wakes up at his residence in 7, Lok Kalyan Marg – a sprawling 12-acre complex with gardens inhabited by peacocks and other wildlife.
Meanwhile, around 6 kilometres away, Gunnu wakes up on a makeshift bed in her roadside shack. She then walks half a kilometre, sometimes more, to find a functioning toilet.
Gunnu lives at Sonia Camp, one of 675 jhuggi jhopri clusters officially recognised by the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board. The slum, spread across 5,285 square metres, is located just across Nivedita Kunj – a housing complex for top bureaucrats in South Delhi’s RK Puram Sector 7 – along Tamil Sangham Marg, right in the shadow of the capital’s power corridors.
While Gunnu, 18, often finds a toilet to use, for others in the slum, holding it in that long isn’t always an option. With no immediate access to sanitation, many relieve themselves on the footpath just outside their homes.
A few kilometres away, in Kirby Place near Delhi Cantonment, residents told Newslaundry they have no choice but to head towards the nearby ridge forest to defecate. Community toilets in the area are either non-functional or unusable, and since the locality lacks sewer lines, none of the homes are equipped with private toilets.
Despite being labelled “Open Defecation Free++” under the Swachh Bharat Mission, Delhi’s slums like Sonia Camp and Kirby Place continue to grapple with a severe lack of functional sanitation. Just kilometres away from the prime minister’s residence and top bureaucrats’ homes, residents, especially women and children, are forced to defecate in the open due to closed, broken, or distant public toilets. While government records boast thousands of new toilet constructions and crores of rupees in funding, on the ground, the promises of Swachh Bharat remain out of reach for the city’s most vulnerable.
All good on paper, not on ground
The central government’s Swachh Bharat Mission website proudly lists New Delhi district, which includes both Sonia Camp and Kirby Place, as not just ODF but ODF++, meaning all community and public toilets are “functional and well-maintained” and all sewage is “safely managed and treated”.
Government data shared in Parliament revealed that from 2021 to December 2024, Delhi government did not utilise any of the Rs 10 crore allocated for toilet construction under SBM 2.0. A 2018 Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report revealed that the then Delhi government did not utilise Rs 40.31 crore, allocated since 2016 under SBM, for creating toilets.
Newslaundry reached out to AAP president Saurabh Bharadhwaj to inquire about the non-utilisation of funds, but did not get a response.
Data further points out that in 2021-22, Delhi did not receive any funds under SBM 2.0.
Newslaundry reached out to Roopa Mishra, Joint Secretary and Mission Director, Swachh Bharat Mission Urban, to understand why funds were not released to Delhi, but did not get a response.
Despite this, Delhi constructed over 9,352 toilets – individual, community, and public – in the past five years. These efforts are partly led by the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board, which runs the Jan Suvidha Complex scheme to provide sanitation in JJ clusters.
According to the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB), there are 685 such complexes citywide. RK Puram has 14, but Sonia Camp has none. In Kirby Place, DUSIB records show one JSC with 40 toilet seats. However, it is not sufficient to cater to more than 900 families living there.
‘No option but to defecate in open’
Barely six kilometres from the prime minister’s residence, Sonia Camp sits tucked between some of Delhi’s most upscale government colonies, which are home to high-ranking officials. But within this sprawl of privilege, around 150 households in the slum are forced to defecate in the open, right on the footpath of Tamil Sangham Marg, due to the lack of toilet facilities nearby.
“Most of us use the public toilet in Mohan Singh Market during the daytime. It opens after 6 am. So, where would one go to defecate before night?” said Pooja, who lives in the camp.
Mohan Singh Market is located around half a kilometre from the slum, and it has two public toilets.
Three out of four public toilets around Sonia Camp have been shut. The only one still technically functioning is in such disrepair that residents say it’s practically unusable – most of the seats are blocked, and a foul odour engulfs it.
“We don’t have any option but to walk and go to a toilet in Mohan Singh Market or the petrol pump station. But at night, we have no option but to defecate in the open on the footpath,” Pooja said.
None of the homes in the slum have individual toilets either. “The problem is with the space,” said Dhara Bhai, another resident. “People live here in small 12 square metre rooms. So, there is no space to build toilets individually.”
According to DUSIB data, there are 150 households in the camp, and residents told Newslaundry that around 1,400 people live there. Several residents said they work as dholak players, performing at weddings and other functions. “All public toilets get closed by 9 pm. So when we return from functions at midnight, where can we relieve ourselves other than on the streets?” Dhara Bhai said.
But the burden falls heaviest on the women of the camp. “Men can easily go out to relieve themselves, but we women face the main challenge, especially young girls. We hesitate at night because of safety concerns,” said 55-year-old Prem.
She pointed out Gunnu, who, having just woken up, was rushing towards the toilet in Mohan Singh Market. “See how these girls have to run for the toilet. How would an elderly woman go so far?” Prem asked. On the sole operational toilet in Sonia Camp, she said, “It’s just there for name’s sake. All seats are choked. You can’t even stand there for a minute.”
Prem added that the other usable toilet is located at Indraprastha CNG Station, about 300 metres away. “The toilets out there are cleaner, so most choose to go there. You can’t even enter the presently functioning toilet here.”
Shanti, a 60-year-old resident, said she has been defecating in the open for the last two to three years. “These toilets have been non-functioning for the last three years. Two to three seats are presently functioning, but they often overflow and become unusable,” she said.
Open defecation comes with its own humiliations. “Sometimes, the cars passing by make a stop near us, making it an embarrassing situation for us,” Shanti said.
Little to no change
Around nine kilometres from RK Puram, Kirby Place in Delhi Cantonment offers yet another stark example of the cracks in the government’s Swachh Bharat Mission. Despite being classified as an ODF++ zone, residents of this slum have been defecating in the adjacent ridge area for years due to a lack of functional sanitation facilities.
In 2022, Newslaundry reported how residents in Kirby Place were forced to relieve themselves in the open, with mobile toilet vans either unusable or dysfunctional. The slum falls under the jurisdiction of the Delhi Cantonment Board – a civic body overseen by the Defence Ministry’s Directorate General Defence Estates.
Over two years later, little has changed.
Mobile toilet vans are still deployed in the area, but most are either non-operational or lack basic components like stairs or doors, rendering them effectively useless, especially for women and the elderly.
“These toilets have been non-functional for almost two years. Two or three seats are functional in the two mobile toilets stationed in the front. So, we go to the jungle to relieve ourselves,” said Phul Devi, a resident of the slum.
Kirby Place is home to over 650 families, many of whom live in temporary, makeshift structures. Because the land is owned by the defence ministry, no permanent constructions – including brick-and-mortar toilets – are permitted. As a result, mobile toilet vans are the only sanitation option offered.
“Only one latrine is functional. These are all scrap, but nobody takes it away,” said Sheila Devi, another resident.
“We have been saying, remove these mobile toilet vans and instead build us kaccha toilets. This would be better as these mobile toilet vans are lying here without any work,” she added.
Newslaundry reached out to officials at the Delhi Cantonment Board for their response on the matter, but no reply had been received at the time of writing this report.
Virender Kadian, the AAP MLA of Delhi Cant, admitted that open defecation takes place in Kirby Place. But he said the “problem here is it’s the defence ministry’s land”.
“So, we don't get permission to develop this area. I have been repeatedly writing to the government demanding that they at least get basic facilities, which is a part of the right to live a dignified life,” he said. “I have done my best to provide them with facilities. We have built a 60-seat toilet in the slum along with solar for electricity. We have also stationed mobile toilet vans in the slum throughout the board. There was nothing in the area before this.”
He said he has written to the government about the problems in the slum many times. “I am trying my best to improve the situation in the slum,” he said.
Meanwhile, in RK Puram’s Sonia Camp, which also struggles with inadequate sanitation, Delhi Municipality Councillor Dharamvir Singh said that reconstruction of toilets is underway. “The new government has come, and the construction of new toilets will be completed within months,” he told Newslaundry.
He blamed residents for the condition of the existing facilities.
“These toilets were constructed in 2017 under the Swachh Bharat Mission. We have maintained and repaired them properly from time to time. But some miscreants damage the toilets. There have been many attempts to improve the situation. But they don't change,” he said.
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