Anoop Jain

Sanitation and Health Rights in India

Big Idea: 

600 million people in India still poop out in the open because they don’t have access to decent toilets. SHRI provides well-designed public community toilets that work. They combine toilet facilities with kiosks that sell clean water at a price all can afford. The revenue from water sales supports the ongoing cleaning and maintenance of the toilet facilities, so communities get a smoothly running system the provides hygienic toilets and clean water for everyone.

Anoop is an environmental engineer. Early in his career he decided to work with Tibetan Refugees in northern India. While there he realized the importance of sanitation and hatched the idea for SHRI. To equip himself for the task, he got a PhD at UC Berkeley, where he studied “the social determinants of owning and using a toilet”. He’s now back in India, building facilities across the state of Bihar.

Rainer Arnhold Fellows