Tag Archives: Swachh Bharat

Adding 57,000 public toilets to Google Maps across India

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/G06WQYQ_kzWfqKM0miZ0t6D9c8SMEg0Xdxg9LdSLYN-5sGumg6NLxHoQJNVq3ZUWrBHOvRNyI_E0ot1vhC2aBQULF1XVpJXDCbEitG7mLOs9GGYa4eJWoDWR_O6Z4tx4vyFfOWHa Anal Ghosh Sr. Program Manager Google Maps
In 2016, in collaboration with the Swachh Bharat Mission, Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs, we embarked on a campaign to help users across India to locate public toilets within Google Maps. We launched this as a pilot in three cities: New Delhi, Bhopal, and Indore. After almost three years, this effort now encompasses over 57,000 public toilets in 2,300+ cities across the nation.




With Google Maps, our aim has always been to help people as they navigate and explore the world, wherever they are. And we believe that making information about public sanitation facilities easily accessible to people is a key element for social good -- one that also constitutes the cornerstone of the government's Swachh Bharat campaign to promote clean habits and hygiene.


We have a long history of making Google Maps more relevant, accurate, and reliable for Indian users with India-first solutions such as two-wheeler mode and offline Maps. For this campaign, our product and engineering teams together built a new process seamlessly integrate toilet listings into Google Maps. We have worked closely with the Ministry to update Maps with key information about public toilets from across India, while refining our systems to accurately surface these toilets through a variety of user queries -- over 2.5 lakh users now search for public toilets every month across Search and Maps.


Today, all you need is to search for ‘public toilets near me’ on Google Search, the Google Assistant or Google Maps and receive results at your fingertips. 


In addition, through Google My Business, we helped the Ministry take ownership of these listings on Google Maps so they could monitor visits, ratings, reviews and more, thereby gaining valuable insights that could help them take necessary action to maintain and upgrade toilets. 


Google Maps Local Guides are also continuing to feedback on toilets in their locality, late last year we ran a campaign to spur awareness and adoption that resulted in 32,000 reviews, photos and edits being added to public toilets across India.


We have been humbled to be a part of this campaign, and remain committed to finding ways to make Google Maps even more useful and relevant to users across India. 


Posted by Anal Ghosh, Sr. Program Manager, Google Maps

Find public toilets in the National Capital Region and Madhya Pradesh on Google Maps

Next time you are on the road and nature calls, don’t fear, Google Maps is here!
Starting today, Google will make information about thousands of public toilets in India’s National Capital Region and Madhya Pradesh available on Google Maps. Working closely with the Ministry of Urban Development, Google is adding the location, address and opening hours of over four thousand community and public restrooms to Maps, aiming to provide easy access to information to people in India and and make it convenient for them to find public restrooms.


With over four thousand listings covering Delhi NCR including Ghaziabad, Gurugram, Noida, Faridabad, Bhopal and Indore in Madhya Pradesh - Indians and visitors alike will now be able to easily find the nearest public toilet on Google Maps — both on the mobile app as well as on desktop. This service will be accessible to users both in English and Hindi language.


From now on, when you search for “public toilet” on Google Maps in an area where the service is available, you’ll see a list of restrooms near you, including the respective address and opening hours. For instance, if you’re traveling on the national highway 8 in Gurugram, locating a public toilet can be challenging and most often the only option is going to nearby restaurants and cafes. Having this information handy can make things much easier.




Public toilet listings in english
Public toilet listings in hindi


Improving sanitation is an important cornerstone of the government's Swachh Bharat campaign for a clean India. This includes making information about existing sanitation facilities easily accessible to people. The Ministry of Urban Development plans to continue to provide information about public restrooms for more cities.


We’re beginning to roll out these new local listings on Google Maps today, and they will be available to users both on desktop and Google Maps for Mobile (Android | iOS).

Posted by Sanket Gupta, Product Manager, Google Maps