India's Toilet Building Initiative

India has built almost 90 million indoor toilets over the past 5 years, as shown in the cluster bar chart below. 90% of the Indian population now has indoor toilets, up from 43% in 2015. While in most of the largest states 100% of the people have access to indoor toilets, other states lag behind, based on data from the India Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation. Today 100% of households have access to indoor toilets in 8 of the 12 largest Indian states.  Access ranged from 30-60% in 2014.  The four other largest states have not reached 100% household access to indoor toilets.  Only 72% of Odisha's 42 million people have access to indoor toilets, which is up from just 13% in 2014.

Cluster Bar Chart of Toilet Building in India

How I Made This Cluster Bar Chart with Data Row

The data for this chart is available on the India Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation website.  I copied the data for each year into Excel and used Wikipedia to identify the largest Indian states.  There are 35 states in India, the 12 largest contain over 3/4 of India's population.  Adding other smaller states would have made it harder to show state-by-state differences in the chart.  I added rows to my data sheet for India as a whole and for toilets constructed.  I showed the former as a net line to contrast the country to the largest states.  I showed toilets constructed as a data row at the bottom of the chart to magnitude of the effort required fore this initiative.  Here is the data for the chart as shown in the Mekko Graphics Data Editor: Here are the steps to make this cluster bar chart with data row:

• copy the data from the India Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation website into Excel
• move the data from separate data tables for each year into one table, adjusting for changes in the list of states from year to year
• create a cluster bar chart in PowerPoint based on the Excel data
• use the Series and Bars dialog to hide series for the 23 smaller states, to show data for the entire country as a net line, and to show toilets constructed as a data row
• add total toilets constructed as a total label for the data row
• add the legend and use a custom sort to show the net line legend first
• hide bar totals and show net line values
• adjust internal chart margins and font size to fit the chart contents
• change colors for series to show three shades of four colors
• add y axis title and show gridlines

Take This Chart and Make It Your Own

Download this chart and edit it using Mekko Graphics. See more bar charts in our chart gallery. Here are some other charts that may be of interest

• Decline in Extreme Poverty Worldwide
• Top 10 Wealthiest Countries in Africa
• Cost of a Pint of Beer Around the World