India’s Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh has said that the country is spending more moey on buying fighter jets than for building toilets for the people.

He pointed out that total amount of money required for installing 100,000 bio-toilets is about the same as that required for buying one fighter jet that the country is buying from France. The minister was speaking out his mind at a function that was also attended by Union Defence Minister AK Antony, who pledged all support for his ministry except monetary assistance.

Mr. Ramesh also criticized the Indian Railways for delaying to change its toilet system on the trains to prevent the open toilets from lettering the tracks across the country. “The second dimension of the sanitation is the Indian Railways which is really the largest open toilet in the world. 11 million passangers travel every day,” he said.

He added that the country is world’s capital of open defecation, citing the figure that 60 per cent of all open defecation in the world in the country. He described the situation as a matter of ‘great shame, anguish, sorrow and actually anger’.

He was speaking at the signing of an MoU between the Defence Research and Development Organisation and Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation.