Sanitation Woes Continues To Haunt India

By Cara

Friday, April 16, 2010, 12:04

How do you define urbanisation? Having adequate public toilets or more number of people using mobile phones?

According to a report issued by United Nations, India, which is the world's second most populous country, have more number of mobile phones than to toilet facility.

"It is a tragic irony to think that in India, a country now wealthy enough that roughly half of the people own phones, about half cannot afford the basic necessity and dignity of a toilet," said Zafar Adeel, Director of United Nations University's International Network On Water, Environment and Health (INWEH).

The report was penned down by expert who are working on ways to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on sanitation by 2015.

They also urge the world community to set a new target beyond the MDG (which calls for a 50 per cent improvement in access to adequate sanitation by 2015) to the achievement of 100 per cent coverage by 2025.

Recent UN research in India shows roughly 366 million people (31 per cent of the population) had access to improved sanitation in 2008.

Another data indicates that 545 million cell phones are now connected to service in India's emerging economy. The number of cell phones per 100 people has increased from 0.35 in year 2000-01 to about 45 today.

It costs about 300 dollars to build a toilet and to achieve the MDG target worldwide, a total of 358 billion dollars are needed for sanitation.