Inventor Targets Open-Air Defecation of 600 Million Indians.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-11/open-air-defecation-of-600-million-indians-targeted-by-inventor.html

At least 54 million people in Asia can thank Bindeshwar Pathak when they defecate in private. If he has his way, about 600 million people in India who don’t have that luxury will join them a decade from now.Pathak, 71, invented a pour-flush, compost latrine in 1970 that is now in use in China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam and Cambodia. He’s leading a push to raise at least 2 trillion rupees ($34 billion) from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government as well as billionaires such as Bill Gates and Mukesh Ambani to end open defecation in India, where about half of the nation’s 1.2 billion people relieve themselves outdoors.
“These other countries came to my door and asked for the model 30 years ago, but our government has yet to take responsibility for India’s biggest problem,” said Pathak, an Indian who was given the “Legend of Planet” award by France’s Senate last year for his work in sanitation. “The new government seems more receptive to this problem.”
At stake is $54 billion a year in economic costs in India.

Premature Deaths

The economy suffers from premature deaths, higher health care costs and a drop in productivity as people fall ill and miss time from work and school, according to a 2011 report by the Water and Sanitation Program, a World Bank-supported group that analyzed data from 2006, the most recent available. A lack of toilets also deters tourists, with at least three studies showing India poses the highest risk to travelers of picking up multiple drug-resistant strains of fecal bacteria.

India accounts for about 60 percent of the world’s residents without toilets, according to a World Health Organization and UNICEF report released in May. The country’s 50 percent open defecation rate compares with 23 percent in Pakistan, 3 percent in Bangladesh and 1 percent in China, the report said.

“If the government executes my plan, then we will raise this money and end open defecation in the next 10 years,” Pathak said.

He plans to spend the $34 billion on 100 million toilets at $340 apiece to end open defecation by 2024. He’ll also need funds for a team of as many as 40,000 unskilled laborers earning at least 15,000 rupees ($250) per month to travel across India installing the toilets in cities and villages.

Open defecation contaminates ground water and spreads disease.

Changing Behavior

Convincing rural Indians to use toilets may prove a bigger challenge than building them, Rosenboom said. After centuries of practicing open defecation, some families refuse to end the cultural norm because using a toilet is sometimes associated with filth and low social status.

“Open defecation cannot end on the planet without it ending in India first,” Rosenboom said in New Delhi. “Beyond just toilets, India needs to tell its people that this behavior is not acceptable and is damaging to society.”