Odisha Targets 100% Household Toilet Coverage By December-End

Bhubaneswar: Odisha has made noticeable progress in construction of household toilets in rural area under Swachh Bhrat Mission.

This was revealed at a review meeting taken by Union Cabinet secretary Pardeep Kumar Sinha over a video conferencing on Monday with senior Odisha government officials including Development Commissioner and Additional Chief Secretary R Balakrishnan along with Principal Secretary, Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water Deo Ranjan Kumar Singh and Mission Director Roopa Mishra..

Appraising the present situation Balakrishnan said more than 6.23 lakh individual household toilets have been completed during the current financial year. Odisha has now reached 51% of coverage level. Field level actions have been expedited to raise this level to 56% by April 10 this year.

Briefing newsmen after the video conferencing, Principal Secretary, Panchayati Raj, said that target has been to cover 100% households by end of December, 2018.

The rate of completion would be enhanced and more manpower would be engaged for uploading of geo tagged data and photographs of the toilets along with beneficiary details, he added.

Available data show that at present over 14000Swechhagrahis have been engaged at village level. Along with them around 1 lakh para government workers are working in the field for promoting safe sanitation practices and use of toilets. As of now, Deogarh district has been declared as open defecation free (ODF) district while Jharsuguda district is set to achieve ODF recognition within a fortnight.

The state government has set it eye on declaring four more districts– Balasore, Gajpati, Sambalpur and Sonepur— ODF by the first quarter of the financial year 2018-19.

The programme is being funded by both the Central and the state government. Annual implementation plan for 2018-19 have been made with total outlay of Rs 5681.44 crore out of which the Centre will provide Rs 3408.86 crore and the state government will provide Rs 2271.94 crore.

The beneficiary share in terms of labour will be around Rs 62 lakhs.