Half-Billion Indians Still Need Better Access to Toilets

 By Eric Bellman  May 9, 2014 

While India has made great progress in helping citizens use toilets rather than the great outdoors to relieve themselves, a World Health Organization report this week said that more than a half-billion Indian citizens still defecate in the open.

A total of 597 million Indians go outside when they have to go, according to the report, “Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation 2014 Update,” from the arm of the United Nations. That is close to 50 million fewer people than the number in 1990, but still many more than the rest of the world combined.

“Over the past 22 years the number of people practicing open defecation fell by a remarkable 21% from 1.3 billion in 1990 to one billion in 2012,” the report said. “Those one billion people–with no sanitation facility whatsoever–continue to defecate in gutters, behind bushes or in open water bodies, with no dignity or privacy.”

Using fields, rivers and abandoned lots as toilets exposes people to diseases such as polio, hepatitis A and diarrhea.

In India the government, along with non-government organizations and even the private sector, have been trying to fight the problem by building more toilets and raising awareness through marketing campaigns including the Unicef viral video of a song called “Take the Poo to the Loo.”

Even the man who many consider the front-runner to become India’s next prime minister, Narendra Modi of the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, has tried to stress the importance better sanitation during his campaign,

 saying he intends to build toilets before temples.

Economic growth and growing appreciation