Kathmandu, November 20

Over 13,000 children die of waterborne diseases in Nepal every year. The root cause of these casualties, equivalent to 65 plane crashes, is lack of toilets in the homes of these children.

"As many as 13,000 children die every year in our country because of waterborne diseases. These deaths can be curbed by building a toilet in every household. The government and non-governmental organisations have not made enough efforts towards this end," said Umesh Pandey, coordinator of the Nepal chapter of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council.

He was addressing an interaction organised to mark the World Toilet Day (WTD). The practice of celebrating the WTD started from Singapore in 2001.

We keep dreaming of cutting to half the number of people, who lack basic sanitation, by 2015, but we don't pay attention to small things that can make a difference, he said.

"Out of the diseases that attack the Nepalis generally, 80 per cent are water-borne. These diseases can be kept at bay by reforming our sanitation practices," he added.

Citing government data, he said only 49 per cent of total schools in the country have toilets. Out of them, only 21 per cent are women-friendly. He said that many girl children drop out of schools because toilets are not women-friendly. Namaste Lal Shrestha, sanitation officer at the UNICEF, said over half of the total population still goes to "the fields" in the morning and invites all sorts of diseases, but we are still concentrating on superficial programmes in the name of sanitation improvement.

"We at least need a modality to give subsidies to encourage people to construct toilets. We need a strong legal framework to control open deification and littering," he said.

Senior comedian Madan Krishna Shrestha said infrastructure building and awareness campaign should go side by side. "Knowledge about sanitation alone will not do because we lack public toilets in the capital."

Suman Sharma, a joint-secretary at the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works, said sanitation targets cannot be achieved if sanitation is taken as a part of the water sector.