Akshay Kumar empties toilet pit with Madhya Pradesh minister

He is clearly one of the few celebrities who actually practices what they preach: Bollywood star Akshay Kumar emptied a toilet pit in Reghwan village, Khargone district of Madhya Pradesh along with Union Minister of Drinking Water and Sanitation Shri Narendra Singh Tomar on Saturday morning.

The minister and Akshay led a team of senior officers of State and Central government to a household in the village that has adopted a twin pit toilet model (twin pit toilets are improved pit latrines, which allow on-site treatment and transformation of faecal sludge into a hygienized soil amendment ), and proceeded to empty the filled pit of the toilet. They held up the compost found in the toilet in their hands to demonstrate that the exercise is perfectly safe and that there should be no stigma attached to it.

Akshay Kumar talked about the myths and biases against handling of decomposed human waste that continue to pervade most rural communities. He said that such safe toilet technologies must be adopted and made a plea to all Indian citizens to stand up against discrimination and to take pride in installing, maintaining and cleaning their own household toilets for the health of their families.

Akshay’s next film opposite Bhumi Pednekar is also based on the Swachch Bharat Abhiyan: it is titled Toilet Ek Prem Katha. Akshay revealed the first poster of the movie on Friday.