NEW DELHI: The fact that sixty per cent of Indian women do not have access to proper sanitation, is the biggest shame for a country that has successfully tested an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), India's Union Minister of Rural Development and drinking water and sanitation has said. “60 per cent women in the country do not have access to toilets…We can launch missiles like Agni and satellites, but we cannot provide sanitation to our women. What can be a biggest blot on the nation than this?” the Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said. India recently tested an ICBM Agni V into as well as launched into space a spy satellite in quick succession. Yet, when it comes to sanitation, India is behind its developing neighbors in South Asia such as Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, who do not have similar military achievements to their credit. Ramesh said that the Central government had now fixed a target to make every gram panchayat (village level body) area free of open-defecation over the next ten years through its scheme called Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan which currently gives $ 44 per household to build toilet facilities. He said he would increase it to $ 198 per household. India has a huge problem of people defecating in the open, a problem that affects both cities as well as rural villages, with there being almost no toilets especially in the slums or no existing sewerage networks. In a bid to tackle the menace, the state of Harayana in India started a campaign called the ‘Shauchalya Nahin To Dulhan Nahin' (No toilets, No bride), which discouraged families from marrying grooms who had no toilet facilities in their homes.
