WASH in Temples
Sacred Spaces Deserve Clean, Safe Sanitation
Restoring dignity and hygiene at India’s most visited spiritual destinations.
THE PROGRAM
Infrastructure that keeps working.
India's temples host some of the highest footfalls of any public spaces in the country from neighbourhood shrines to mega-pilgrimage sites drawing lakhs of visitors daily. Yet sanitation infrastructure at religious sites is chronically under-resourced: inadequate toilets, poor water access, and no sustainable maintenance model. Saaf Sutra's WASH in Temples program addresses this directly combining infrastructure upgrades with community and trust-level ownership so that clean, functional facilities become the norm, not the exception.
What we do
- Assess and upgrade sanitation and water infrastructure at temple complexes
- Work with temple trusts, local government and communities to build shared ownership of upkeep
- Introduce sustainable O&M models so facilities remain functional long after construction
- Run hygiene awareness efforts for pilgrims, staff and vendors around temple premises
- Document outcomes to build replicable models for temple bodies across states
Why temples
Temples are recurring, high-footfall public spaces embedded in daily life and pilgrimage cycles meaning a well-run WASH model here has an outsized, repeated impact on public health, and offers a powerful, visible proof point for scaling similar models nationally.
Build a model that lasts.
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