Indonesian people’s access to decent sanitation facilities climbed by an average of 2.35 percent in each of the past 10 years, according to an official of the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas).

“This is quite good. Unfortunately, the number of people practicing open defecation (BABS) has fallen slightly by 1.2 percent per year. Meanwhile, we hope that open defecation would no longer be practiced in Indonesia as of 2024,” Laisa Wahanudin , the Coordinator of the Sanitation Section of the Housing and Settlement Directorate at the National Development Planning Agency/National Development Planning Ministry, stated.

Nearly 6.19 percent of the Indonesian households still practice open defecation, she noted at a webinar held to mark World Toilet Day here on Monday.

She remarked that the people’s access to decent sanitation facilities in 17 provinces was also still below the national average.

The government has set itself a target of increasing the number of households having decent sanitation facilities to reach 90 percent of the total figure in 2024. Nearly 15 percent of the decent sanitation facilities will be safe.

“At the end of 2020, nearly 80 percent of the households had decent sanitation facilities, with 7.64 percent of them being safe,” she pointed out.

To achieve the target, the country requires 505 sewer treatment plants. “The number is not small. We need 1,153 dirt trucks nationwide to carry feces to be processed at sewer treatment plants,” she stated.

The government has projected 1.7 million households to be connected to sewer treatment plants until the end of 2021, she remarked.

Source: Antara News