NEW DELHI, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- A 75-year-old beggar in India has hogged media limelight for building a toilet in her hutment with alms, after spending all her life defecating in the open.
Rahima Bewa, a native of the eastern state of West Bengal's Murshidabad district, took the noble mission to build a toilet in her mud house after not being able to get any help from the Indian government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Clean India Mission.
"Some people told me defecating in the open is harmful for our health. So, I decided to build a toilet in my house. I'm spending my savings for it," she told Hindustan Times newspaper.
The toilet is costing the old beggar some 15,000 Indian rupees (200 U.S. dollars), but that has not deterred Bewa, who lives in a remote village in Murshidabad with her disabled 50-year-old daughter Kamala and also takes care of her.
Though she has not got any money from the central government that offers help to the poor for building toilets at home, the state government has promised her monetary assistance.
Bewa took to begging after her sons threw her out of their house, following the death of her husband, who was a farmer, some 20 years back.