The final frontier
Fixing dreadful sanitation in India requires not just building lavatories but also changing habits
CHEER any Indian leader who takes on the taboo of public hygiene, one of the country’s great problems. Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, says building toilets is a priority over temples. His finance minister, Arun Jaitley, used this month’s budget to set a goal of ending defecating in the open by 2019. That will be 150 years since the birth of Mohandas Gandhi, who said good sanitation was more important than independence.
Ending open defecation would bring immense benefits. Some 130m households lack toilets. More than 72% of rural people relieve themselves behind bushes, in fields or by roadsides. The share is barely shrinking. Of the 1 billion people in the world who have no toilet, India accounts for nearly 600m.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline "The final frontier"
More from Asia
Chinese firms are expanding in South-East Asia
This new business diaspora is younger, better-educated and ambitious
The family feud that holds the Philippines back
Squabbling between the Marcos and Duterte clans makes politics unpredictable
The Maldives is cosying up to China
A landslide election confirms the trend