The discourses on rural and urban spaces in India in the context of physical infrastructure have divulged their inherent characteristic differences. However, given the trends of urbanisation in India there has been a paradigm shift in rural – urban continuum manifested in, amongst many things, planning, production and provision of public and private infrastructure. This research explores the secondary data on sanitation infrastructure in large and dense villages in India from three census datasets. The analysis undertaken in the study attempts to comprehend the preference for improved on-site sanitation facilities in selected villages which were also found to be proximate to urban areas and national highways. The findings of the research highlight the statewise variations in large and dense villages which account for sizeable percentages of respective state population and depict a, generally, high preference for septic tanks and improved pits. The results of the study substantiate the need for a primary survey to instruct policy making adequately on the indispensability of decentralised strategies to improve the sanitation value chain.