( Raghuvansh Prasad Singh the Rural Deve...)India On The Road To Become 'Open Defecation Free',Health

Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, the Rural Development Minister today in New Delhi Announced that the country was set to achieve open defecation free status under the governments // Total Sanitation Programme ( TSC) by 2012.

Open defecation is a problem that is not faced only in rural India but also in urban India. The lack of enough public bathrooms, a clean sanitation environment, and basic education in the poor as well as rural communities has resulted in this pressing problem.

The consumption of unsafe drinking water, the disposal of human excreta, the lack of personal and food hygiene is the largest cause of disease and high infant mortality rate in developing countries like India. After all a direct relationship does fall between water, sanitation and health.

With the launch of TSC in 1999 by the rural development ministry these and several other problems are being addressed on a larger scale with the hope of eradicating them in the distant future.

The government’s efforts seem extremely encouraging after a new report on the success of their project reveled that since 2001 there has been a constant growth on the uses of toilets.

"The growth in the use of toilets from 22 percent in 2001 to 38 percent of the population in 2006 (till February) is an encouraging sign." Announced M.P Prasad Singh.

"The government has raised the grant for construction of household toilets from Rs.625 to Rs.1, 500. While the central government would now bear 70 percent of the expenditure as against 60 percent earlier, the rest will be shared by the state government and the family," he said, on the sidelines of a campaign on the need to wash hands.

The minister pointed out other issues related to defecation.

"In Haryana and Punjab people are not poor, what they lack is awareness. They have trucks, tractors and four-wheelers but no toilets - this is really surprising. However, states like Gujarat and
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