19% of Indian households have no sanitation facility: Survey

India's 5th National Family Health Survey has found 19 percent of the households in the country are devoid of any sanitation facility with their members practicing open defecation, reported Xinhua.

The latest family health survey report was released by the federal health ministry on Thursday in the western state Gujarat.

"Sixty-nine percent of households use an improved sanitation facility that is not shared with other households and eight percent use a facility that would be considered improved if it were not shared," the report said. "Nineteen percent of households have no facility, which means that the household members practice open defecation."

The findings of the report are based on gathered information from 636,699 households across India between 2019 and 2021.

The Indian government launched the Swachh Bharat (Clean India) Mission in 2014 with the goal of eliminating open defecation from the South Asian country.

The survey has also found only 59 percent of households in India use clean fuel for cooking.

"Ninety-six percent of households use an improved source of drinking water and 97 percent of households have electricity," said the report.

The report compiled by India's International Institute of Population Sciences based in Mumbai revealed that 90 percent of the surveyed households have an Aadhaar card (biometric identification card), while 96 percent either have a bank or a post office account.

According to the survey, 27 percent of the participants are aged below 15 years while 12 percent are aged 60 and above.