Despite New Delhi's self-reliant public stance, India receives almost twice as much development assistance for water and sanitation as any other country, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
A report to be officially published next month says India accounts for 13 per cent of all water aid, while Iraq - the next biggest recipient - gets 7 per cent.
India receives about $830m (euro 620m, pound 564m) a year in water and sanitation aid, more than double the amount provided to China. New Delhi's biggest backer is Tokyo, which supplied $635m of assistance in 2006-7.
"About 70 per cent of the sector's aid money goes to non-low-income countries," said Henry Northover, head of policy at the non-government organisation WaterAid. "A lot goes to countries with substantial resources of their own.
"One shouldn't forget why sanitation is of importance and that points to India. South Asia has the lion's share of children dying from diarrhoea and disease."
In recent years India, a fast-growing emerging economy, has moved to counter its image as a large donor recipient. After the deadly Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, New Delhi rejected offers of emergency help, despite thousands of deaths.
At the time, frustrated foreign aid officials interpreted the refusal as part of India's efforts to project itself as an emerging great power.
Five years ago New Delhi reduced to six the number of foreign countries from which it accepts aid. But India's social deficit is vast. An estimated 400m people live on less than $1 a day. Improving sanitation is one of the country's most formidable challenge.
"Malnutrition and sanitation are to India what human rights are to China," said a Delhi-based UN official. "They are the blackspots."
Unicef, the UN children's fund, says that less than half of India's 1.2bn people have access to a lavatory. Defecation in the open poses a serious health risk and is responsible for high mortality rates among children.
By comparison, only 3 per cent of China's 1.3bn population lacks access to a toilet.
William Fellows, Unicef's regional adviser for water, sanitation and hygiene, said India had an excellent record in clean-water provision, but had lagged in its provision of human waste disposal.
By 2030, the Paris-based OECD forecasts, 3.9bn people worldwide will be living in areas of water stress. Most of them will be in China or south Asia.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
