India to track toilet use with tablets

[hari../kumar/.]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/31/us-india-toilets-idUSKBN0K90O720141231?feedType=RSS&feedName=oddlyEnoughNews

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is launching
a nationwide online program to check whether people are using toilets
as part of his cleanliness drive.From next month, officials will head
out with mobile phones, tablets and iPads to report on whether toilets
are being used in rural India, with results uploaded onto a website in
real time.

India's shortage of toilets costs the country more than $50 billion a
year, mostly through premature deaths and hygiene-related diseases,
according a World Bank study. India suffers a greater cost than other
Asian countries from the poor collection of human excreta, the study
found.

About 626 million Indians defecate in the open compared with 14 million
in China, the World Health Organization said in a 2012 report.