Sunita Devi

Sunita Devi (born 1980) is an Indian mason honoured for building toilets. In her village 90% of the women did not have access to a toilet. After her work they all now have access. She was given the Nari Shakti Puraskar award in 2019 by the President of India.

Life Devi was born in 1980. She graduated with a degree in political science. Neighbours in her village were in a similar situation but she was unable to raise this as a problem because of etiquette. Only 10% of the women had access to a toilet and the rest had to defaecate in the open.

When others including the Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin (SBM-G) arrived in her village in 2015 and started to talk about toilets. Recipients of the Nari Shakti Puraskar. Devi is in the middle of the back row Devi took an interest. She wanted to train to be a mason but her father-in-law objected because she was a woman. The job of being a mason was done by men, although many masons considered the task of creating toilets too small to be worthy of their attention. With her husband's support she persevered and became a "Rani Mistris" (woman mason). A year later the President honoured another woman Kalavati Devi who had also trained as a mason to build toilets in Kanpur. At the award ceremony the Prime Minister singled out the work of the Swachh Bharat Mission which had inspired Devi to her work for particular praise.