Status of Drinking Water and Sanitation in the Basanti Community Development Block under Indian Sundarban Delta

It is widely known that drinking water and sanitation are vital to human life, health and well‐being. Lack of safe drinking water and sanitation has adverse effects on human development. After the Millennium Development Goals, the water and sanitation aspects are exclusively included in the UN Sustainable Development Goal 6, and efforts are made to raise awareness globally. Sustainable management of drinking water and sanitation for all is aimed to be ensured by SDG 6, promoting health, economic growth, gender equality, and environmental protection to achieve broader development goals. Basanti is one of the community development blocks (CD Block) in the Indian Sundarban Delta. The status and issues of drinking water and sanitation in the Basanti CD Block are attempted to explain here, using the secondary database. This study found that this CD block is facing drinking water and sanitation problems. Only 1.68% of the total households have drinking water within the premises, and 56.21% still practice open defecation. Different government schemes are available that need to be properly implemented to resolve these issues within this CD Block.