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By the time you read this article, some 600 million Indians must have taken that first call of nature. But for most, it must have been very unusual: to take that hesitant and humiliating step out of their homes to defecate in the open. Everyday, an estimated 100,000 tonnes of human excreta is deposited in the open along rivers and streams, in open fields, on road sides and farms to contaminate water sources. According to Unicef, each gram of human excreta contains 10 million viruses, one million bacteria, 1,000 parasite cysts and 100 parasite eggs. As many recent reports suggest, this unacceptable lack of sanitation has been responsible for high malnutrition in India.
But why do people defecate in the open? In the 21st century and within an emerging economic power fuelled by new age technology and economy, this is not an ideal question for public probing. But it cannot be brushed aside. It may not be a simple coincidence that India has both the world's largest number of people defecating in the open and highest malnutrition rate.
But aren't we implementing one of the largest sanitation programmes in the world? Yes, India in fact is implementing arguably the fastest toilet building programme on earth. According to government records, in the past one decade, India has been building more than 3.5 million toilets a year. To put it in perspective: 9,589/day, 400/hour or seven toilets/minute. Despite this, government has been changing its goal post to attain universal sanitation coverage. Earlier it said all Indians should have a toilet by March 2012. Now the government says it will be in March 2022 that we can dream of something that Mahatma Gandhi once said is more important than Independence.
| Overwhelming figures
100,000 tonnes: amount of human excreta deposited in the open each day 10 million viruses, 1 million bacteria, 1,000 parasite cysts: what each gram of excreta contains |