In rural India, people had been practising open defecation for centuries. Sanitation, especially in rural areas of the country, never got priority in the developmental planning, and hence the census 2001 showed a dismal figure of hardly 20% coverage of sanitation in the country. Another factor that mattered much was low awareness of hygiene behaviour amongst the masses. This coupled with low sanitation coverage posed a very big challenge for rural India in the present century.
Keywords
- Open defecation
- Sanitation
- Government initiatives
- Sustainable sanitation coverage