A joint report by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has estimated that at least 60 percent of the people, who defecate in the open, live in India. The Minister of State for Drinking Water and Sanitization told the Rajya Sabha in response to a query. The Minister said that the government was already implementing a comprehensive program to bring sanitation facilities in the rural areas through their respective state governments and union territories under the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA). The objectives of NBA include construction of toilets and generally maintaining a clean environment.

The report states that 2.5 billion people around the world are without sanitation facilities and of this 1.8 billion live in Asia, but this however is declining in all regions. The report reveals that open defecation is dropping from 24 percent worldwide in 1990 to 18 percent in 2006. According to the report, open defecation is still most widely practiced in Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa – by 48 percent and 28 percent of the population, respectively. In contrast, open defecation is common among only 3 percent of the people in Eastern Asia. In four of the seven developing regions for which data are available, less than 10 percent of the population practices open defecation

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