22 states in India still to have proper sanitation facilities

(January 26, 2012) Twenty two states in the country will not be able to meet the government’s household sanitation coverage program, set to end this year. To counter the open defecation problem in the country, the government had launched its flagship Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) in 1991, implemented in 606 districts of 30 States and Union Territories. A recent review, however, said that 22 states will not be able to meet the target. In fact, only five States - Tripura, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala and Mizoram - will be able to meet the 2012 target, said the report ‘A Decade of the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC)’, brought out by the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Programme and the Ministry of Rural Development. Overall, the report found an increase in coverage from 21 per cent in 2001 to over 65 per cent. In the 1990s, only one in five rural households had access to a toilet. It also ranked the performance of states on a scale of 100. Only three States - Kerala, West Bengal and Maharashtra - have shown superior performance of above 75. Among the States whose performance was above average (50-74) are Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Sikkim, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Tamil Nadu. All the rest are below average.