When Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) built toilets in Karnataka village schools nearly a decade ago, it discovered a problem it had not anticipated: nobody was using them.
Root cause analysis revealed why communities held a deeply ingrained belief that an in-compound toilet was unclean. Going outdoors, they maintained, was the healthier option.
The finding prompted TKM to stop further construction and redirect its corporate social responsibility effort toward behavioural change, launching what would become the ABCD — A Behavioural Change Demonstration — programme in 2015-16.
The initiative has since reached 6,69,322 students, teachers and community members across 1,300 government schools in Karnataka and drawn recognition from Harvard Business School, which has featured it as a case study.
The programme’s early breakthrough came from an unexpected quarter, TKM Country Head and Executive Vice President (corporate affairs and governance) Vikram Gulati told PTI.
In one Ramanagara village, two girls aged approximately 11 and 12 organised a classmate hunger strike, refusing to eat until their families built home toilets. The strike succeeded.
“This actually led to the first breakthrough,” Gulati said.
The programme trained children in handwashing technique, toilet use and personal hygiene, positioning them as agents of behavioural change within their households and wider communities. Schools competed on hygiene standards. Children carried lessons home. The ripple effect — by design — travelled from classroom to household to community.
When the programme expanded to Raichur, one of India’s government-designated Aspirational Districts, the company said a baseline survey across 500 schools in December 2023 exposed how deep the crisis ran.
Only 48 per cent of required toilets existed. Of those, just 20 per cent were usable. Twelve per cent of schools lacked a single functional handwashing unit. Ninety per cent of students depended on open tap water. One in four children still practised open defecation.
At home, the picture was no better: 44 per cent of students had no toilet at all.
India’s Swachh Bharat, or Clean India, Mission has constructed tens of millions of toilets since its launch in 2014 under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Independent researchers and government field assessments have repeatedly flagged the gap between construction targets and actual usage, citing behavioural barriers, poor maintenance and water scarcity as persistent obstacles.
Over two years of implementation in Raichur and neighbouring Lingasuguru, toilet usage among students rose from 76 per cent to 95 per cent, according to TKM data.
Handwashing compliance increased from 20.5 per cent to 100 per cent.
Seventy-five toilets and 30 urinals were constructed. Fifty-eight handwash taps were installed or repaired. Twenty-eight schools received safe drinking water access. Menstrual hygiene sessions were conducted for 3,546 adolescent girls.
At the community level, 1,382 parents were motivated to construct home toilets during the programme period; 38 completed construction.
Harvard Business School has recognised ABCD as a case study. The Ivey Business School has published it — rare international acknowledgment for a sanitation initiative rooted in rural India, the TKM Said.
The ABCD programme sits within a broader corporate social responsibility architecture that TKM has been expanding rapidly.
Since 2001, the company’s CSR work has spanned education, health, environment, skill development, road safety and disaster management, guided by what it describes as a “Child to Community” approach. TKM spent Rs. 104.7 crore on CSR activities in FY 2025-26, reflecting the scale of its social investment commitments.
In the 2025-26 financial year, TKM significantly widened its geographic footprint, extending its reach from communities around its manufacturing base to 12 states — among them Uttarakhand, Nagaland, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Odisha.
The company plans to expand further to 22 states in 2026-27, framing the ambition under a stated vision of “Grow India, Grow with India.”
“TKM is strengthening health infrastructure through preventive and curative interventions, enhancing the quality of education, and improving employability,” Gulati said, describing the overall mission as creating “Mass Happiness for All.”
The Raichur intervention is ongoing. The earlier Ramanagara phase has stabilised, he added.
Source: PTI
