There are more than 12 lakh households in Assam which have not had access to toilets. Despite the Total Sanitation Campaign, the practice of open defecation continues in the State.

The Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) or Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA) is a community–led total sanitation programme launched by the Government of India in 1999. It is a demand–driven and people–centred sanitation programme. The main goal of the Total Sanitation Campaign is to eradicate the practice of open defecation by 2017. Villages that achieve the ‘open defecation free’ status receive monetary rewards and high publicity under a programme called Nirmal Gram Puraskar.