LAHORE, Jan 28: Sanitation situation is the worst in the Punjab villages where 71 percent of the households lack a toilet.

A Unicef report, released recently, said all other provinces had a better sanitation coverage in their rural areas. It said 39 percent of the rural households in Balochistan have toilets. The figure also represents the national average. The ratios for the NWFP and Sindh are 55 percent and 64 percent, respectively.

The Unicef had started efforts to improve rural sanitation in some selected districts of the Punjab in 1983 in collaboration with the Local Government and Rural Development Department. Subsidy was also offered for the construction of toilets for demonstration purpose. The strategy was, however, changed later as it was seen to be creating a dependence as villagers waited for subsidy instead of building toilets on their own.

Since 1999, the Unicef has adopted a ‘communication approach’ to encourage the construction of toilets, observing a sanitation week in the year 2000 in all 34 districts of the Punjab. As a result, 6 percent of the households were reported to have constructed 250,000 toilets in just one year.