India has more mobile phones than toilets

I have seen people in villages of India using cellphones for each and every small work like calling someone to the farm by giving a missed call, or by checking the price of the food grains in the cities by just calling over mobile. On the other hand, the government should take initiative of building and maintaining more toilets in the cities as well as villages. The toilets are seldom seen and if they are seen, they are very dirty and unhealthy. The government should address this issue asap.

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As the country’s wealth continues to grow, almost half the population have a hand-held device but less than a third have access to proper sanitation.
The lack of flushing toilets has led to continuing problems of water-borne illness and millions of deaths, according to UN experts who published a nine-point prescription for achieving the world’s Millennium Development Goal for sanitation by 2015.
Their report on India, the world’s second most populous country, shows 600 million people – 54 per cent of the population – defecated in the open in 2008, causing a health disaster.
At the same time, 545 million mobile phones are now connected to networks in the developing nation.
The Indian government has vowed to end open defecation by 2012.
Zafar Adeel, director of UN think-tank the Institute for Water, Environment and Health, called for ‘popular education about the dangers of poor sanitation’.
‘This simple measure could do more to save lives, improve health and help pull India and other countries in similar circumstances out of poverty than any alternative investment,’ he added.

Source: www.metro.co.uk, 14th April 2010