Sanitation coverage has been improving substantially in rural areas of the country since 2003 despite challenges in achieving 100 percent success by 2010 due to natural calamities.
Officials of the water and sanitation wing of Local Government Division said on Thursday that sanitation coverage in rural areas has already reached 88.22 percent in June this year against 28.77 percent achieved during the period of baseline survey in 2003.
Quoting the survey report, they said sanitation coverage in the municipal areas went up to 88.12 percent in 2008 from 33.21 percent in 2003 and in the city corporation areas to 85.03 percent in 2008 from 69.92 percent in 2003.
The improvement in sanitation coverage was possible due to increased public awareness and their motivation towards achieving sustained health benefits, they added.
The baseline survey in 2003 revealed an appalling scenario in sanitation and set a national goal to attain total coverage by 2010. An expert team prepared a strategic plan in this regard.
According to the survey, only 33 percent households had hygienic latrines while 25 percent had unhygienic ones in 2003. Besides, 55 million people representing about 42 percent households did not use any form of latrines during the period.
The issue of sanitation received international attention in 2000, when the UN General Assembly endorsed eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), out of which two are directly linked to sanitation and environmental sustainability.
Shams Uddin Ahmed, deputy secretary of the ministry of local government, now engaged in formulating sanitation policies and strategies, told the news agency that frequent natural calamities made it difficult to ensure 100 percent sanitation coverage in the country.
"It is just like a monkey's vain effort to climb up a slippery bamboo," he said, adding that sanitation services have been disrupted due to impacts of natural disasters, particularly floods and cyclones.
He further said, "The government has made it compulsory for the upazila administration to spend 20 percent funds of the Annual Development Programme (ADP) for raising the sanitation coverage."
The government, he said, decided that 90 percent of the allocation must be used for procurement of sanitary latrines for free distribution among the hardcore poor.
Shams Uddin said the government is now proceeding with the 'horizontal learning' programme under which steps have been taken to promote the best practices of sanitation from people to people, house to house and village to village.
The programme is now being implemented in nine upazilas and two more upazilas will be brought under the programme very soon, he added.