-Business Standard Around 71.3 per cent of rural households and 96.2 per cent of urban households had Access to toilets during 2018, according to the survey More than one-fourth of households in villages have no Access to toilets, according to the latest official survey conducted by the National Statistical Office (NSO). Around 71.3 per cent of rural households and 96.2 per cent of urban households had Access to toilets during 2018, according to...

-Down to Earth According to high-level government sources, the survey results contradict the government’s open-defecation free status claim A copy of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO)’s latest survey on the state of toilet coverage and use at the household level in India was doing the rounds among officials. The ‘draft’ report, accessed by Down To Earth, pegged toilet coverage in India at only 75 per cent. Close to 80 per cent of...

-The Hindu The campaign to end open defecation can succeed only if it takes communities with it India’s declaration on the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi that its rural areas are now open defecation-free will be acknowledged around the world as a milestone in its developmental journey. Cleanliness and sanitation were central to Gandhi’s concerns for his vast number of impoverished countrymen, and should ideally have been pursued zealously by governments...

-Down to Earth While we near the deadline of October 2, 2019 for ODF, concerns like non-functional toilets, poor sewage and drainage systems, lack of water, and poor faecal sludge management demand immediate attention of the new government In the last five years India saw a renewed focus on sanitation with the launch of Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) which aims to provide universal sanitation coverage by providing funds for constructing toilets, promoting...

-TheWire.in With one of the highest undernutrition rates of children in urban areas, Delhi needs to tackle the issue of severely stunted children in the city who don't have access to proper infrastructure and facilities at local anganwadi centres. New Delhi: It is an early summer morning in North Delhi’s Kabir Basti. A dingy and crowded lane of the settlement, with puddles from water leakages in broken pipes, opens up to a...