Drinking Water and Sanitation minister Narendra Singh Tomar, and eminent film personality, Akshay Kumar, today undertook a toilet pit emptying exercise in Reghwan village, in Khargone district of Madhya Pradesh. The Minister and the actor personally 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 in their toilet, and proceeded to empty the filled pit of the toilet and 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. <br/><br/>In his Mann Ki Baat in February this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had appreciated a similar exercise conducted in Warangal district of Telangana. He had also called upon public personalities from various walks of life to join in creating awareness about safe, waste to wealth toilet technology. Speaking on the occasion, Mr Tomar said, under Swachh Bharat Mission, twin pit toilet technology is the most preferred, safe and low-cost technology, promoted among all rural households. He said, a pit in a standard twin-pit toilet fills up in roughly 5 to 6 years, and the waste may then be easily re-directed to the second pit by the members of the household. <br/><br/>The Minister added that in another 6 months to 1 year, the waste in the filled pit decomposes completely, and turns into safe-to-handle compost, which is rich in NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) nutrients, which makes it ideal for use in agriculture. He heralded this as a great example of creating wealth from waste. Akshay Kumar spoke about the myths, biases and stigma against handling of decomposed human waste that continue to pervade most rural communities. He said, such safe toilet technologies must be adopted and made a plea to all citizens of India to stand up against discrimination and to take pride in installing, maintaining and cleaning their own household toilets for the health and dignity of their families.