Toilet still a dream for 732 million
Women worst affected, ODF deadline of Oct 2019 will require 12 crore new toilets
NEW DELHI: India has the highest number of people — 732 million —without access to toilets, according to a report by international charity WaterAid.
If all these people stood in a line, the queue would run more than four times around the earth, said the report released ahead of World Toilet Day on Sunday. Women and girls are among the worst hit, with 350 million of them lacking access to basic sanitation, the report said.
“On World Toilet Day we reaffirm our commitment towards improving sanitation facilities across our nation. I compliment all those individuals and organisations working towards building more toilets in various parts of India. Their invaluable contribution adds solid momentum to Swachh Bharat Mission,” PM Modi tweeted Sunday.
The Swachh Bharat Mission is a flagship programme of the Modi government launched on October 2, 2014. One of its primary objective is to make India 100% open defecation free (ODF) by October 2, 2019, marking five years of the launch of the Swachh Bharat Mission.
“While India is making rapid progress in improving sanitation under the ongoing Swachh Bharat Mission, we need to ensure inclusion, recognising the importance of safe and accessible toilets specific to the needs of the differently abled, the elderly, the poorest, as well as women and adolescent girls,” VK Madhavan, chief executive for WaterAid India, said.
The ODF deadline of 2019 will require 12 crore new toilets between October 2017 and 2019. Till November 2017, only 5.38 crore new toilets have been built.
A report released by TERI University earlier found that the only state to meet its toilet construction target was Gujarat.
In a survey conducted by Quality Council of India (QCI) that assessed 1.4 lakh households in 4,626 villages across all states, a little more than half of all households (62.45%) in rural India had access to toilets, which were used 91% of the time.