An international NGO, WaterAid, has
put India in
second place on the list of the world's worst places for sanitation.
China is number one in the 2007 WaterAid report on the Status of the
World's toilets.
While we have made progress since Independence, even now over half the
population does not have access to safe sanitation. From 1 per cent
rural and 50 per cent urban population having access to sanitation in
1998, the coverage has jumped to 48 per cent (rural) and 93 per cent
(urban).
But as Depinder S. Kapur, country representative, WaterAid India
argues, these are merely figures of infrastructure and do not reflect
the actual access and usage of latrines by individuals or families.
"Given the large population of slum dwelling and unaccounted for urban
populations and their exclusion from formal urban sanitation and
sewerage systems, we believe the coverage status is about the same for
both urban and rural India," he said.
The government remains committed to making India open defecation-free
by 2012 and has increased the funds for the Total Sanitation Campaign
by 43 per cent from Rs 7.40 billion in 2006-07 to Rs 10.6 billion in
2007-08. Today, with new components like Solid and Liquid Waste
Management, the programme has crossed the Rs 120 billion mark in its
total outlay, making it one of the largest sanitation programmes in the
world.
Nonetheless, WaterAid points out that even if the sanitation Millenium
Development Goals (MDG) goals are met, more than half-a-billion people
will still remain uncovered. It calculates that the MDG 7, Target 10
states that it aims only to halve by 2015 from the 1990 levels the
proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water
and adequate sanitation.
So, even if the MDGs are reached in 2015, almost half the rural
population some 388 million people and 28 per cent of the urban
population 112 million people would still be without basic sanitation.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=cf1eaf5a-2616-4e76-9a4b-cfbed9f3
3bf1&&Headline=India+No+2+on+poor+sanitation+list
