UN Monitoring Report Upticks Indian Sanitation Efforts

The UN Monitoring Report makes the following observations:

• India has made great progress in providing basic sanitation facilities since the start of the millennium. Almost two-thirds of the 650 million people globally who stopped practising open defecation between 2000 and 2017 were in India.
• But there was absolutely no growth in the population with access to piped water facilities. Large inequalities persist between rural and urban areas. The percentage of households getting piped water has remained stagnant at 44% over the 17-year period.
• There has been an increase in the percentage of people with access to a protected drinking water source less than 30 minutes away, from 79% in 2000 to 93% in 2017.
• Whereas producing large amounts of solid and liquid waste does not imply an ability to treat and dispose of safely. Only 30% of the wastewater is treated at plants providing at least secondary treatment, in comparison to an 80% global average.

Sanitation Efforts in India

• India was single-handedly responsible for dragging the world towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal of ending open defecation.
• Swachh Bharat mission has set an example and inspiration to other countries, especially in Africa and those in East and South Asia.
• To address the shortcomings in waste management the government would be focusing on Solid and liquid waste management in Swachh Bharat phase 2.

Further to address the concerns with the lack of piped water connections the government is working on the Nal Se Jal Programme.