Sanitation For All: Where Do We Stand?

The trend in sanitation coverage in the South Asian countries show marked difference. Among the South Asian countries, India has been the least developed in sanitation coverage. It occupies the bottom position amongst the South Asian countries. About 48 percent of population in India lives without toilets, of which majority lives in rural India in 2012. As per 2011 census, India has 53 percent of households without toilets; in absolute number about 9 million households increased without toilet over the decade. An attempt has also been made to identify some of the factors responsible for variation of sanitation development by using multi-variate analysis. Overall education development among women has strong positive relationship with growth of sanitation in India. However, other variables such as overall economic growth, women work participation rate, members of women elected in Panchayat also have positive relationship in sanitation development in India. A crude time projection was made, based on the growth of households with toilet between 2001 and 2011. The results of rough calculations found that India would take more than 50 years to have a toilet by every household. Urban area would take somewhat 24 years. However, urban areas in some states like Kerala, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, and Goa may keep the promise of Swachch Bharat by 2019. If the current trend continues, the BIMARU states (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh) and Odisha the goal "Sanitation for All" is unlikely to be achieved in the century.