Haryana Government on Wednesday claimed that all rural areas including 6,205 gram panchayats in the State have become open defecation free (ODF).
Haryana has become the fourth state after Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Kerala, where all the rural areas have been declared ODF.
“An ODF plus campaign has now been prepared for sustenance of the ODF status through effective solid and liquid waste disposal management,” said Development and Panchayats Minister, OP Dhankar.
Talking to mediapersons on Wednesday, the Minister said that the State took upon itself the challenge to become ODF by 2017 by bringing about behaviorial change through an intensive campaign.
As per a survey conducted in 2012, of the total 30.24 lakh rural households in the State, 7.3 lakh households were without toilets.
Today, more than 7.51 lakh toilets have been constructed and 100 per cent coverage of toilets in rural areas has been achieved, he claimed.
About 51,000 toilets were constructed as a result of the condition set by the Haryana Government that persons wishing to contest elections to Panchayati Raj Institutions must have functional toilets in their houses,” added the Minister.
Dhankar said that under the Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin), a community-led sanitation approach along with a cluster-based human resource framework was adopted with the technical assistance of the World Bank. Giving more details about the campaign, he said that each district conducted a
three-four month intensive campaign led by the Deputy Commissioners, Additional Deputy Commissioners and district officials from all departments.
Apart from this, ‘Nigrani samitis’ were constituted at the village level to keep constant vigil on open defecation in the villages. As an incentive, the State Government was giving a grant of Rs 1 lakh to every panchayat which achieved ODF status.
Besides Swachhta Puraskar, Swarna Jayanti Award for sanitation was started under which Rs 1 lakh is being given to one gram panchayat per block and one gram panchayat in a district for cleanliness which includes maintaining ODF status.
Dhankar said that now, an ODF plus campaign has been prepared under which focus would be on sustaining ODF status and on solid and liquid waste management through community participation.