India far from achieving sanitation goal: WHO report

New Delhi: Although India is on track to meet its millennium development goal for safe drinking water with 93% of the population having access to an improved source of water, it is far from achieving its target for improved sanitation facilities with 792 million people still living without access to improved sanitation facilities in 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a report released on Thursday.
The 2014 progress update report by the WHO said two billion people around the world have gained access to improved sources of drinking water since 1990, but also that 2.5 billion do not have access to improved sanitation facilities.
According to the report, India still accounts for the highest number of people who defecate in the open, 597 million.
Unicef has launched a public campaign (named Poo2Loo), featuring an animated lump of excreta, Mr Poo, to make people aware of the health hazards of open defecation.
According to the WHO report, despite progress, sharp geographic, socio-cultural, and economic inequalities in access to improved drinking water and sanitation facilities still persist around the world.
“The vast majority of those without improved sanitation are poorer people living in rural areas. Progress on rural sanitation—where it has occurred—has primarily benefited richer people, increasing inequalities,” said Maria Neira, WHO director for public health, environmental and social determinants of health, in a press statement on Thursday.
The report showed that with a 25% increase in population with access to safe drinking water since 2000, India is now on track to meet its millennium development goal for drinking water access. Worldwide, by the end of 2012, 89% of the global population used improved drinking water sources, with 2.3 billion people gaining access to a good source of water in 22 years.
Improved sanitation is one of the targets under United Nations Millennium Development Goals, which were established in 2000 to improve the basic living conditions of the global populatio