The Promotion of Sanitary Toilets in India

Samir Dan . August 4, 2013

Focusing on the pivotal role that safe drinking water and sanitation play in the progress of the people in any location, this article discusses the use of sanitary toilets in the context of the Joint Monitoring Programme Report (2012) for Water Supply and Sanitation

Focusing on the pivotal role that safe drinking water and sanitation play in the progress of the people in any location, this article discusses the use of sanitary toilets in the context of the Joint Monitoring Programme Report (2012) for Water Supply and Sanitation

Background

T he threat to human health from water-related issues is linked to, both, its scarcity and quality. Also, most of the water quality concerns are linked to faecal contamination, resulting from open defecation. Lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation, therefore, prevents sustained progress in public health, globally. Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), as a sector is, therefore, the foundation upon which health facilities/infrastructure and other initiatives to address malnutrition need to be based. The challenge of laying WASH as the foundation for public health inputs to succeed are, however, quite daunting as is the challenge of meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the global level. The magnitude of the challenge is documented in the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) report, published every two years.

THE JMP REPORT (2012)

The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation (on the progress on Target 10 of the MDG 7) reports on the access to drinking water and sanitation globally. The Target 10 of the MDG 7 aims to “halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.” The base year for all the MDGs is considered to be 1990. The latest report of the JMP, published in 2012, states that the target of halving the proportion of people not having access to safe drinking water globally was met in 2010, five years ahead of time. During 1990 and 2010, over two billion people gained access to safe water worldwide and, currently, about 11 per cent of the people are using unimproved sources. Also significant is the fact that almost half of these two billion people, who have gained access to safe drinking water between 1990 and 2010, live in India (522 million) and China (457 million).

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