Nearly 590 million Indians defecate outdoors. That almost half the population in the country. As a result, Prime Minister Modi has launched the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan program (Clean Inda Mission) which includes the construction of 110 million toilets until 2019.
Only a third of the households have access to a toilet. “We cannot stop working until we eradicate this scourge that causes illnesses and makes women vulnerable”, Modi said during the presentation of a plan that was launched last April 1 and whose cost is estimated at 29,000 million euros.
Sugali is one of its beneficiaries. For five days, this farmer and his wife work hard at building their toilet. “Now we are aware the advantages of having a toilet. Before, we did’t even we thought about it although we were embarrassed to go in a public place and did our best to hold it in till night time.” His wife did miss it. “Men have it easy, but women suffer”, she says while looking at her husband reproachfully. Their two children are boys, so she was a minority.
”Building toilets is relatively simple, all you need is money. The hard part is to change the mentality of the population. Therefore, planning and training people is vital for the plan to succeed”, states a government spokesman.
In the village of Dehelud they no longer have that challenge. Six years ago, their mayor received the Nirmal Gram Puraskar national award to the cleanest town for having turned his village in the State of Rajasthan into the the first one where all households have a toilet. This has made the cases of diarrhea to drop by 40% and the town a safer place for women, as they no longer fall pray to possible sexual assaults while out in the fields alone.
Source: elpais.com
