53 Percent Of Indian Households Defecate In Open: World Bank

Washington: With over 600 million people in India or 53 percent of Indian households defecating in the open, absence of toilet or latrine is one of the important contributors to malnutrition, a World Bank report has said.

The report, released on the eve of the first ever UN World Toilet Day, said access to improved sanitation can increase cognition among children.

Currently, more than 2.5 billion people worldwide lack access to toilets, one billion people practice open defecation.

“Our research showed that six-year-olds who had been exposed to India’s sanitation programme during their first year of life were more likely to recognise letters and simple numbers on learning tests than those who were not,” said Dean Spears, lead author of the paper ‘Effects of Early - Life Exposure to Sanitation on Childhood Cognitive Skills.’

The paper studies the effects on childhood cognitive achievement of early life exposure to India’s Total Sanitation Campaign, a national scale government programme that encouraged local governments to build and promote use of inexpensive pit latrines.

“This is important news - the study suggests that low-cost rural sanitation strategies such as India’s Total Sanitation Campaign can support children’s cognitive development,” Ms. Spears said.

The results also suggest that open defecation is an important threat to the human capital of developing countries and that a program accessible to countries where sanitation development capacity is lower could improve average cognitive skills.