Google toilet locator set to help Indians find lavatories

Initially, the pilot project is expected to go live in Delhi before the end of November

Google and the Indian government are teaming up to stem the culture of open defecation in the country.

The Indian Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD), in association with the search engine giant, is launching a Google Toilet Locator tool to help people find the nearest and cleanest toilets in cities and towns across the country.

Around 70 per cent of the Indian households don’t have toilets, forcing majority of population to defecate and urinate in open or use public toilets.



As part of MoUD's Cleanliness Fortnight campaign, initially the tool will be launched in the Delhi metropolitan area before November ends. The tool works just like searching for banks or restaurants. It would allow users to search for nearby toilets by typing any relevant word like “toilet”, “lavatory,” or Hindi words for toilets like “swach” and “shulabh”.

Talking to International Business Times, India, an MoUD official said it would not only include the public restrooms or Sulabh Shauchalays in the area, but also those in public places like metro stations, malls, petrol pumps and hospitals.

According to another MoUD official, the facility would be embedded in Google Maps, and people will be able to search for toilets around them from the app itself.



Users would also be able to rate toilets based on cleanliness. "The system being put in place relies heavily on crowdsourcing, with people's feedback helping fuel it. Therefore, if a person finds that a toilet is not clean, he or she can give it a bad review or rating, the facility for which is available on Google Maps," the MoUD official added.

While the tool is launching in Delhi metropolitan area before end of the month, the authority has given no fixed timeline for when the whole country will get it. "Mechanisms are in place for the facility to be scaled up, and for it to reach all the 2,041 urban local bodies (ULBs) of the country," the official said, adding that the feedback from the pilot project would help them expand the programme to other urban areas in India.

This article originally appeared on International Business Times