India's new government has embarked on the challenging endeavor of ending open defecation by providing toilets for some 800 million people by the year 2019, its latest annual budget shows.
Federal finance minister Arun Jaitley last week allocated 343,770 million rupees (US$7.2 billion) of the general budget to ensure toilets in every house. The allocation, 425 percent higher than what was allotted last year by the Congress-led government, would be spent under the Clean India campaign, officially known as the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
"Although the central government is providing resources within its means, the task of total sanitation cannot be achieved without the support of all," Jaitley said while presenting the budget on July 10.
The government has set a deadline of 2019 in achieving total sanitation.
Open defecation is a major problem as an estimated 800 million of country's 1.23 billion people have no access to basic toilet facilities.
According to the World Health Organization, out of the nearly 600,000 Indians that die every year from diarrhea, 88 percent of deaths are attributed to the country's lack of access to basic sanitation, clean water, and hygiene provisions.
"Building a toilet should become a top priority of government. Apart from the safety and dignity of women, this will also help in removing poverty and diseases," Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of Sulabh International, told ucanews.com.
Pathak, whose organization provides clean public toilets in towns and cities, said people need to be made aware of the necessity of toilets because poverty alone is not the cause for the lack of toilets. The 2011 national census revealed that India has more cell phones than toilets.
Pathak said the government's commitment is evident through the fund allocation but the "usage of funds and the methodology needs to be clear to achieve total sanitation in the country".
"Otherwise there will always be a gap between the promises made and the budget allocation," he said.
The government will have to build nearly 20 million toilets in one year for the next five years "if it wants total sanitation by 2019", Pathak added.
Echoing the same views, Neeraj Jain, chief executive officer of WaterAid India, said the drive to achieve total sanitation should begin immediately.
"Providing access to sanitation to 800 million people within the next five years will require a huge mobilization, not only to build toilets, but also to bring about the shift in the mindsets of the people so that they recognize and value [of[ this essential service," he said.
Jain said that the lack of toilets not only had an impact on health, but also on the security of Indian women and girls.
In the past few years, many rapes have reportedly taken place when women or girls went to relieve themselves in an isolated place, he said.
The most recent example was the rape and murder of two cousins in Uttar Pradesh, which made international headlines. The incident occurred in May when the pair went to relieve themselves in a field at night and were gang raped and hanged by a group of men.
