732,207,000 Indians don’t have access to basic sanitation: Report

India ranks in the top ten for reducing open defecation and improving access to basic sanitation. But there is still a long way to go

GN Bureau | November 21, 2017


#Sanitation   #Swachh Bharat   #Cleanliness  


India, the world’s second-largest country by population, once again comes out top for the highest number of people without basic sanitation, said a WaterAid report.

The report “Out of Order -The State of the World’s Toilets 2017” said that in India, a staggering 355 million women and girls are still waiting for a toilet; if they were all to stand in a queue, it would stretch around the Earth more than four times!

Read: Getting India to Stop Going Out 

There has undoubtedly been immense progress made in improving access to sanitation by working with the Swachh Bharat (Clean India) Mission – with 52 million household toilets built between October 2014 and November 2017, according to government data. India also ranks in the top ten for reducing open defecation and improving access to basic sanitation. But there is still a long way to go, it said.

China, the world’s most populous country, comes in second, with 343 million people without decent toilets. However, it too has made a lot of progress since 2000, when 40% of the population lacked basic sanitation.  Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, is in third place.

Cambodia’s northern neighbour, Laos, is not far behind, reducing open defecation by two-thirds, followed by Nepal. Midway through the list is India, which – with the help of the Swachh Bharat (Clean India) Mission – has reduced the proportion of people defecating in the open by 40%, meaning more than 100 million people no longer face this indignity.

The report noted that reaching all 1.28 billion people in India with basic services is a huge challenge, but change is happening.

“The Indian government has a target of eliminating open defecation by the end of 2019, which has made toilets front-page news. WaterAid has also helped 1,171,000 people in India get decent toilets in the last year, by working with the Swachh Bharat (Clean India) Mission. However, the work is far from done, and the need stretches beyond households to schools and hospitals. According to the World Health Organization, two in five health centres lack basic sanitation, putting patients and health workers at risk of infection.”

The number of people without access to at least basic sanitation stands at 732,207,000 in India.

However, the authorities concerned said that the Water Aid report quotes data from the WHO-UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP),which extrapolates sanitation data based on available data from past studies between 2000 and 2015.

“This means it misses out on most of the progress under the Swachh Bharat Mission which aims to eradicate open defecation from the country by October 2019,” said a PIB press release.

Recognizing that such an unprecedented commitment to bringing so many people out of open defecation in such a short span of time has no parallels anywhere in the world, the JMP, in the same report, inserted a special section with high praise for the rapid results being seen under the Swachh Bharat Mission, and stating that their report does not capture a lot of the work done since 2015, and hence the data is not up to date.

The press release said that the disparity between the numbers mentioned in this report and reality is extremely stark. This report says that “355 million women and girls are still waiting for a toilet”. This is a total departure from reality. The same JMP report confirms that as on June 2017, the total number of people defecating in the open in India has reduced to 350 million, and this has further come down to below 300 million people as on November 2017. The report also mentions that 56% of people in India lack access to safe sanitation, whereas the present number is down to about 28%. In fact, the ministry of drinking water and sanitation maintains a detailed household level database of sanitation coverage on its website, which is also open to the public.

Also read: The Man on Mission Number Two
 
 

Comments

 

Other News

Maharashtra Aggregator Cabs Policy flawed: IFAT

On May 21, 2025, Maharashtra issued a government resolution (GR) on its Aggregator Cabs Policy 2025 to formalize the largely unregulated sector. The guidelines outline the framework on ride cancellations, surge pricing, driver earnings, among others for app based services like Ola, Uber. Now, the Indian Fe

The Northeast the most diverse region of our diverse nation: PM

Prime minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Rising North East Investors Summit 2025 at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi on Friday. Welcoming the dignitaries to the event, the PM expressed pride, warmth, and immense confidence in the future of the North East region. He recalled the recent Ashtalakshmi Mahot

MMRDA proposes formation of Fare Fixation Committee for Metro Lines 2A & 7

Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has proposed the constitution of a Fare Fixation Committee (FFC) for Mumbai Metro Lines 2A and 7, currently operated by Maha Mumbai Metro Operation Corporation Limited (MMMOCL). ‘Fare Fixation’ is mandated under Section 33

‘Op Sindoor not an act of revenge, but a new form of justice’

Emphasizing that Operation Sindoor was not an act of revenge, but a new form of justice, prime minister Narendra Modi on Thursday remarked that it was not just an expression of outrage but a display of India`s unwavering strength and determination. He asserted that the nation has adopted a bold approach, s

An ode to the enduring legacy of India’s temple culture

Dynasties of Devotion: The Secrets of 7 Iconic Hindu Temples By Deepa Mandlik (Translated from the Marathi by Aboli Mandlik) HarperCollins, 232 pages, Rs 399

How to improve India’s crèche system

India stands at a pivotal moment, caught between the promise of a demographic dividend and the crisis of gender inequality. While falling fertility rates, rising female education, and increasing labour force participation signal progress, policymakers continue to neglect one of the most invisible yet vital

Visionary Talk: Amitabh Gupta, Pune Police Commissioner with Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now



Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter