India is on track to meet its 2015 Millennium Development Goal target on water says a UNICEF report, though sanitation remains a cause for concern.
According to the 'Progress for Children: A Report Card on Water and Sanitation' released by UNICEF, about 445 million people in South Asia, of whom 88 per cent were from India and Pakistan, gained access to improved drinking water between 1990 and 2004.
Yet in many areas in South Asia, including India, naturally occurring arsenic and fluoride contamination are threatening to reverse the gains made in providing improved drinking water.
This report card, the fifth in a UNICEF series that monitors progress for children towards the Millennium Development Goals, measures the world's performance in drinking water and sanitation, which are vital prerequisites for improved nutrition, reduction in child and maternal mortality and the fight against disease.
Things have improved greatly since 1990 when only 3 per cent of the rural population in India had access to proper sanitation, the report notes. In the past decade and a half, considerable progress has been