A Study on Global Water Consumption and Improved Sanitation Facilities: Indias Plight in Contrast to Other Countries

Abstract

The effect of poor and unhygienic water on health is a pandemic problem across many nations. As per the estimations, approximately 37.7 million Indians are suffering from waterborne diseases annually, diarrhea is observed to be worst illness that is causing huge child mortality. The bad sanitation and hygiene also affects poor productivity which in turn cripples the economy. The economic burden due to poor sanitation and unhygienic drinking water is estimated at $600 million a year. 700 million people residing in rural India comprise more than about 1.42 million habitations spread over 15 diverse ecological regions. In fact, providing drinking water to such a large population is an enormous challenge. Hence, in this very context, a study have been undertaken so as to study and visualize the global water consumption and improved sanitation facilities to know about Indias predicament in comparison to other countries. Certain powerful statistical tools like principal component analysis and itemized cluster analysis were employed to realize the study objectives. The countries were identified in certain important groups lying in similar situation with respect to sanitation and hygiene drinking water facilities. Most importantly the a (chronbach alpha) and β (factor saturation) are very fair to the clusters identified, whereby, affirming that the study variables, i.e. both urban and rural populations with respect to sanitation facilities and availability of hygiene drinking water could strongly characterize the countries under study.