Over 774 million Indians don’t have access to Toilets, International Agency Report
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NEW DELHI: Around 60% of Indians do not have access to safe and private toilets, a new study has claimed. A report titled ‘It’s No Joke - State of the World’s Toilets’ by WaterAid states that “If all 774 million people in India waiting for household toilets were made to stand in a line, the queue would stretch from Earth to the moon and beyond.” According to the study released on the occasion of World Toilet Day on Thursday, the world’s second most populous nation has 60.4% of its people without access to safe and private toilets. “Since 1990, access has improved by 22.8 percentage points, putting India at seventh out of eight countries for improvement in South Asia. In South Asia, Nepal has seen the most improvement, followed by Pakistan and Bhutan,” the report stated. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given the sanitation issue a top political priority, and last year launched Swachh Bharat (Clean India) Mission. Commenting on Swachh Bharat, which aims to ensure a toilet for every household by 2019 and to educate people about the long-term health and economic benefits of using a a proper sanitation system, the report said that “by simply building the toilets won’t be enough: Hindustan Times was quoted as saying.
