and 73 percent for the treatment GPs. In the weighted data, access to toilets in the control GPs increased from 80 percent of households at the baseline to 84 percent after the completion of project interventions. A relatively larger improvement was noticed in the treatment arms, where access to toilets improved from around 74 percent of households at the baseline to around 82–83 percent of households after implementation. Improvement in access in treatment GPs was mostly due to the expanded coverage of safely managed facilities, which increased from around 59–61 percent at the baseline to 66–68 percent after project completion. There was also an increase in “limited” sanitation facilities—that is, toilets shared among households—in the treatment GPs after completion. For the control GPs, most of the improvement in access seen between the baseline and midline is due to limited sanitation facilities, whose coverage increased from 6 to 11 percent. Coverage of basic and safely managed sanitation facilities in the control GPs mostly remained unaltered (table A.7). A relatively larger proportion of households initially without toilets in the treatment GPs also reported having toilets under construction during the midline compared with the baseline. At the baseline, 4.3 percent of households without toilets in arm 1, 2.3 percent in arm 2, and 7.3 percent in arm 3 reported having toilets under construction. The respective percentages increased to 10.2 percent, 12.2 percent, and 19 percent at the time of the midline. In contrast, the percentage of households initially without toilets that reported having toilets under construction in control GPs declined from 2.8 percent at baseline to 1.2 percent at midline.

In the unweighted data, we observed a reduction in open defecation, as reported by any member of a household, across the treatment and control groups. Reduction in open defecation was relatively larger for the treatment arms (ranging from 8 to 10 percentage points) compared with control GPs, where open defecation declined from 42.6 percent at the baseline to 39.6 percent after project completion. In the weighted data, the percentage of households in treatment GPs reporting open defecation by any member declined from 27–30 percent at the baseline to 24–25 percent during the midline. Surprisingly, in the control GPs, we observed an increase in open defecation from 24.6 percent at baseline to 30 percent at midline. This could imply that a larger share of households with toilets, and that were assigned larger weights due to their underrepresentation in the sample, reported open defecation during the midline compared with the baseline.

The households in our sample displayed a high degree of awareness of hygiene and sanitation issues. Baseline survey respondents, both adults and school-going children, were asked whether they had soap at home, and whether they thought that handwashing with soap was a better option than without. Almost all answered yes. A majority of these respondents correctly identified the need for using soap. Close to 99 percent of the adult respondents were also aware of the ill effects of open defecation on children and the community.

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