New Delhi, 13 mar (EFE).-the Indian Government today revealed that over half (53 per cent) of the 330 million households of the Asian giant lack of a latrine, according to data from the new national census conducted during 2011.
In a statement, the Ministry of the Interior stressed that the figure has improved with respect to the previous census, in 2001, when 64% of households in the country did not have a toilet.
The Indian authorities launched an ambitious campaign, “Total Sanitation”, with the goal of building million household toilets, in the last decade but it is estimated that more than half of india’s population still defecating in the open air.
“There are 60% (of the population) who defecates in the open air in the country, which has 700 million mobile…” “We build toilets but they are not used,” the Indian Minister of Rural development and hygiene, Jairam Ramesh said recently.
According to the census data disseminated today, 67% of households have electricity – a figure 11 percentage points higher than the 2001–, while only 47% of households have direct access to running water.
According to the study, also has been “an improvement” in recent years in the materials used for the construction of the houses of this emerging power. EFE
