Clean India Mission Has Made a 'Promising Start': WaterAid

Kochi: Lauding the Clean India Mission for making a 'promising start' in providing eight million toilets in the first year, a global agency, has stressed on more funding and changing the people's behaviour to make the programme a success.

Poor construction and failure to convince people to change their behaviour can lead to toilets falling into disuse, WaterAid, an international charity working on improving access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation, cautioned in its report on the status of world toilets released last week.

Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious 'Swachh Bharat' (Clean India) mission to deliver a toilet to every household and end open defecation by 2019, it said: "This is no small task in a country where 560 million people still defecate in the open.

"One year in, they've delivered toilets to 8 million households - a promising start. But, to succeed, more funding, greater government prioritisation at all levels and a focus on changing people's behaviour to ensure everyone uses these new toilets will be required," said the report titled "It's No Joke: The State of the World's Toilets 2015".

Stressing on the need to change the people's behaviour to ensure everyone uses newly built toilets, it carried a photo of a household toilet stated to be in Madhya Pradesh's Panna district, which is used as a satellite dish stand.

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"If just one person continues to defecate in the open, the environment remains polluted for everyone. If Clean India is to succeed, sanitation must be seen as a fundamental human right along with food, education, livelihoods and health, for everyone in the country - including the poorest and most marginalised," it said.

The report said 173 people were defecating in the open for every square kilometre in the country.

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"That ratio would be the same as 500 people having to defecate in the open in the Square Mile of the City of London, or 15,000 people in Manhattan, New York City. Open defecation leaves communities filthy and children ill and undernourished," it said.