More people in India, the world's second most crowded country, have access to a mobile telephone than to a toilet, according to a new UN study on how to cut the number of people with inadequate sanitation.

"It is a tragic irony to think that in India, a country now wealthy enough that roughly half of the people own phones, about half cannot afford the basic necessity and dignity of a toilet," said Zafar Adeel, Director of United Nations University's Institute for Water, Environment and Health (IWEH).

India has some 545 million cell phones, enough to serve about 45 per cent of the population, but only about 366 million people or 31 per cent of the population had access to improved sanitation in 2008.

The recommendations of United Nations University (UNU) released on Wednesday are meant to accelerate the pace towards reaching the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on halving the proportion of people without access to safe water and basic sanitation.