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This work evaluates the impact of the Clean India Mission sanitation program on children's cognition. Using survey data from the ASER, and program coverage data from the Indian government, we utilize the district level roll-out of the program to examine changes in children's math and literacy (reading) test-scores. We find positive and significant improvements in math scores, but not in literacy scores. Results are similar across genders, and two different age-groups. Our findings violate the parallel trends assumption. To address this, we examine relative changes in differential pre-trends for an unbiased treatment effect estimate. Robustness checks point to dynamic improvements in math scores, and also show that math score improvements are not driven by co-existing village-level changes. Multiple pathways, through which the program can affect cognition, are recognized. To address non-random program roll-out, we test if pre-treatment village, district, and household-level characteristics predict program coverage.
