Far more Indians have access to cell phones than to basic sanitation
According to Millennium Development Goals India Country Report 2009, “India, one of the most densely populated countries in the world, has the lowest sanitation coverage.” The target is to reduce the proportion of households without access to improved sanitation to 38 per cent by 2015; the proportion of households without any toilet facility declined from about 70 per cent in 1992-93 to about 51 per cent in 2007-08. There is very high disparity between urban and rural areas when it comes to access to toilet facilities — 66 per cent of rural households do not have toilet facilities against 19 per cent of urban households, according to DLHS-3 (District-Level Household and Facility Survey) data for 2007-08. Among the states with lowest access to toilet facilities are Bihar (17 per cent), Chhattisgarh (17.9 per cent), Jharkhand (14.5 per cent), Rajasthan (25.1 per cent) and Uttar Pradesh (26.4 per cent), while the states where households have highest access to toilet facilities include Delhi (94.3 per cent), Kerala (96.7 per cent), Lakshadweep (98.8 per cent) and Mizoram (98.2 per cent). This is one indicator where the north-eastern states perform better than the rest.
Besides, access to toilet facilities in other buildings like health centres, schools and public spaces is lacking all across the country. For girls in particular, the lack of separate toilet facilities in schools has been one of the factors causing dropouts. Though the share of schools with girls toilets has been increasing over the years, the progress is still quite slow. DISE (District Information System for Education) data for 2008-09 show that just a little over half of all schools in India had girls’ toilets; the situation in states like Jharkhand, Bihar and Chhattisgarh, which also lag behind on education indicators, is quite grim. According to ASER 2009 (or Assessment, Survey, Evaluation, Research), the percentage of schools with no water or toilet provision has been declining over time, so there has been some progress. However, four in ten government primary schools do not have separate toilets for girls; and while about 12-15 per cent girls’ toilets are locked, less than half are useable. (See chart)
| GENDER GAPS Percentage of schools with girls’ toilet (2008-09) | |||
| Top five large states | Bottom five large states | ||
| Haryana | 87.32 | Jharkhand | 28.23 |
| Uttar Pradesh | 82.36 | Bihar | 26.06 |
| Punjab | 86.09 | Chhattisgarh | 23.13 |
| Rajasthan | 79.32 | Jammu & Kashmir | 20.36 |
| Kerala | 78.99 | Assam | 12.74 |
| Source: District Information System for Education Flash Statistics 2008-09 | |||
| TOILET TROUBLE Share of households with no access to toilet facility, using open spaces (%) | |||
| Total | Rural | Urban | |
| DLHS-2: 2002-04 | 63.80 | 80.80 | 20.10 |
| DLHS-3: 2007-08 | 50.70 | 65.80 | 19.20 |
| Source: District-Level Household and Facility Survey | |||
The government’s Total Sanitation Campaign was launched in 1999, restructuring the Central Rural Sanitation Programme to make it demand-driven and people-centred. Under this, a nominal subsidy is given to rural poor households for construction of toilets and the emphasis is on “information, education and communication, capacity building, and hygiene education for effective behaviour change”. Involving the communities through the panchayats, NGOs and so on, the campaign works to cover many areas — individual household latrines, school sanitation and hygiene education, community sanitary complexes and anganwadi toilets supported by Rural Sanitary Marts and Production Centres.
Despite all the policy moves, the results on the ground so far leave much to be desired and a United Nations Report in April this year highlighted the fact that far more Indians have access to cell phones than to basic sanitation. The government has missed its target of eradicating the practice of open defecation by 2010 and is looking at reworking its strategy. What is needed is a veritable sanitation revolution to raise hygiene, and, consequently, health levels all across the country.
Indian States Development Scorecard, a weekly feature by Indicus Analytics, focuses on the progress in India and across the states across various socio-economic parameters
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