India home to world’s highest number without clean water

NEW DELHI  — A report says India has the world’s highest number of people without access to clean water.

The international charity Water Aid says 75.8 million Indians — or 5 percent of the country’s 1.25 billion population — are forced to either buy water at high rates or use supplies that are contaminated with sewage or chemicals.

That accounts for more than a tenth of the 650 million people worldwide without clean water access — more any single country in Africa or in China, where 63 million have no access to clean water.

The situation worldwide has improved since 1990, with 2.6 billion people gaining access to clean water since then.

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