Mobile telephones more common than toilets in India: UN report

More people in India, the world's second most populous country, have access to a mobile telephone than to a toilet, according to a set of recommendations released on Wednesday by United Nations University (UNU) on how to cut the number of people with inadequate sanitation.

"It is a tragic irony to think that in India, a country now wealthy enough that roughly half of the people own phones, about half cannot afford the basic necessity and dignity of a toilet," said Zafar Adeel, director of United Nations University's Institute for Water, Environment and Health (IWEH), and chair of UN-Water, a coordinating body for water-related work at 27 UN agencies and their partners.

India has some 545 million cell phones, enough to serve about 45 percent of the population, but only about 366 million people or 31 percent of the population had access to improved sanitation in 2008.


Source -  Based on UNITED NATION'S report