Nepal continues to bear a loss of some 10 billion rupees [US$ 127 million] annually [in terms of health expenses, loss of productivity and adverse effects in tourism] and 13,000 children under the age of five die every year from the diseases caused by unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation.
According to the statistics of National Sanitation Steering Committee, about 54 percent population does not have access to basic sanitation (toilet). Less than 20 percent population in village development committees of 25 districts has basic sanitation facility, […] only 41 percent schools have toilet facility and only 12 percent population of the country has access to sewer system.
[…] Senior divisional engineer of National Sanitation Steering Committee Khum Bahadur Subedi said, “We can eradicate unemployment and bring improvement in health and sanitation in Nepal by providing training of sanitation and toilet management in Nepal.”
Secretary [at the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works, Umakanta] Jha told that the Millennium Development Goal has set to provide sanitation service to half the population within 2015 and the government is committed to fulfill [the] national goal of providing basic sanitation facility to the total population by 2017. [A]round 1,48,000 toilets (405 per day) are being constructed in Nepal each year at present but the national goal of sanitation can be achieved only by constructing 3,20,000 toilets (879 per day) each year.
Related web site: International Year of Sanitation 2008 in Nepal
Source: Yalu Joshi, Gorkhapatra / NGO Forum, 13 Nov 2008
Sanitation Updates 