by treatment status.<sup>11</sup><sup>_,_12</sup> Importantly, the SBM program was similarly active in both our study arms throughout the study period. This is confirmed by SBM officials’ reports on sanitation activities that took place in their communities between 2015-2017, shown in Table 1. The table compares reports between control and treatment villages, showing statistical balance across the board. The vast majority of SBM officials report that sanitation activities had taken place (79% of all officials), and out of those that report to have hosted such activities nearly all report SBM activities (76% of all officials). On average, SBM officials report that these activities were mainly carried out by the GP Sarpanch (i.e. the village leader). Community sanitation activities aimed primarily to create awareness about sanitation, with street plays and village meetings particularly popular. 40% of the village officials also reported that wall paintings or wall banners have been installed to promote improved sanitation practice, and most of these installations were also observed by the interviewer during the endline visit. Other than awareness creation activities and subsidy schemes, very few SBM officials report any other sanitation activities organised at the village level.

The experimental variation and the almost simultaneous introduction of the sanitation loans and the SBM subsidy allows us to gain an understanding whether and how micro-credit was successful in complementing the SBM subsidy program.

# **3.2 Data**

## **3.2.1 Data sources**

To assess the extent to which a micro-credit program can support the SBM subsidy program, we link together three different data sources which each contain unique information needed in our analysis: (i) SBM administrative data on household toilet ownership, subsidy receipts and official VG classification status (henceforth referred to as ‘SBM data’); (ii) household survey data on toilet ownership, open defecation practice and various household socio-economic characteristics as well as borrowing data that were collected for the experimental impact study of the micro-credit intervention (‘survey data’); and (iii) administrative MFI and credit bureau data.

## **SBM data**

The SBM data were downloaded from the SBM data portal, a Management Information System (MIS) developed by India’s Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MDWS) to monitor progress towards its ODF mission. In 2012-2013, prior to the launch of the SBM on 2 October 2014, the MDWS conducted a nationwide survey to assess SBM baseline levels of toilet coverage across the country and to identify households eligible for SBM subsidies (BPL households and vulnerable APL households, see Section 2.2). The SBM data portal encompasses these baseline data. In addition, States are required to update toilet ownership information on a continuous basis, the latest by April every year (SBM, 2017). Among the information uploaded is household level information on toilet ownership, subsidy receipts (since SBM

> 11There are 5 branches in total in the study area and village size could be either ‘large’ (villages with more than 480 households) or ‘small’. A further 39 GPs received another intervention. In on-going work we study the impacts of this intervention separately.

> 12SBM had just been announced when the randomization of GPs was conducted.

8