New Delhi (dpa) – Nearly half of India's 1.2 billion people do not have toilets at home, but more people have telephones, officials said Wednesday citing the latest census data. The report shed light on contradictions within a country that is logging rapid economic growth while struggling with poverty. The report on housing, household amenities and assets by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner revealed that millions of people have access to the latest technologies and consumer goods, but a larger number lacks access to most basic facilities. Only 46.9 percent of 246.6 million households have lavatories, while 49.8 percent defecate in the open, statistics show. The remaining 3.2 percent use public toilets. In stark contrast, 63.2 percent of the households own a telephone connection, 53.2 percent of them, mobile phones. “The most urgent concern from the data is open defecation as half the country's population does it,” Additional Registrar General RC Sethi said. Cultural and traditional reasons are behind the practice, but there was improvement as 53 percent of the households have no toilets compared to 64 percent in 2001. “We cannot become a developed country overnight, but a lot needs to be done. The government and people should take it as a mission to improve on sanitation and toilet facilities,” Sethi said. More than 75 percent of people in the eastern states of Jharkhand, Orissa and Bihar have no toilet facilities, the report said. The data showed that 47.2 percent of households have television while only 19.9 percent have a radio. The reach of computers with internet access is low in India, home to several software giants, with only 3.1 per cent of the population connected. Indian families still rely on traditional smoky fuels to cook. Two-thirds of the households continue to use firewood, crop residue, cow-dung cakes or coal, the report said. The findings also showed that about one-third of the population has access to treated drinking water. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/wBAQ2 Tags: India, Mobile Phones, Toilets Section: Latest News, South Asia, Tech
