Vidya Balan to promote sanitation campaign

New Delhi, May 3(IANS) Bollywood actor Vidya Balan Thursday became the brand ambassador of the rural development ministry to spread awareness about sanitation and cleanliness in the country.

Balan said the sanitation campaign needs to become a national obsession.

According to a statement, she has agreed will campaign for two years and will be involved in the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan --the restructured version of the Total Sanitation Campaign.

Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said Balan will appear in ad campaigns to propagate construction and use of toilets besides promoting habit of hand washing, personal hygiene and managing waste.

According to UNICEF-WHO Joint Monitoring Programme Report 2010, nearly 60 percent of India's 1.1 billion people still practice open defecation and close to 58 percent of all open defecation in the world is in India.