While the State Government focuses on claiming motley achievements in various developmental works, Uttarakhand apparently dropped to a new low being among the six Indian States which, during the past two years, have completed less than 10 per cent of the five-year mission target for construction of individual household toilets as part of the Swachchh Bharat Mission (Urban). Among these six States only Manipur with nine per cent and Bihar with 7.40 per cent have performed better than Uttarakhand which has achieved 7 per cent of the mission target.
The performance of the States was revealed recently in a meeting chaired by the Union minister for Urban Development, M Venkaiah Naidu to review the progress of the mission in urban areas . According to official information, during the two years of Swachh Bharat Mission, 22,97,389 individual household toilets have so far been constructed in urban areas of the country as against the five-year mission target of 66,42,221 such toilets to be built by 2019. Citing 35 per cent of mission target being met in two years of the mission duration, the central authorities have termed construction of toilets meant for ending open defecation in urban areas as being “broadly on course”.
Two states- Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh have achieved the mission targets three years ahead of schedule in September this year with Gujarat meeting the target of constructing 4,06,388 toilets and Andhra Pradesh building 1,93,426 toilets in urban areas. Both these states have been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF) in urban areas. On the other extreme is Uttarakhand with seven per cent, among the states that have built less than 10 per cent of mission targets including Manipur at 9 per cent, Bihar with 7.40 per cent, Odisha with 4.40 per cent, Mizoram with 3.34 per cent and Arunachal Pradesh with 1.60 per cent. The states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand which had come into existence at the same time as Uttarakhand have performed considerably better than Uttarakhand which is often touted as “Devbhoomi” especially to boost “religious tourism”. Chhattisgarh has achieved 61 per cent of its mission target by constructing 1, 83, 726 toilets out of the target number of 3,00,000 toilets whereas Jharkhand has achieved about 30 per cent by constructing 47,968 toilets out of the target of 1,61,713 toilets. It should also be mentioned here that both Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh states are also counted among the left Wing Extremism (lWE) affected states of India experiencing the problem in varying degrees. Other lWE states have also performed better than Uttarakhand when it comes to moving closer to the target number with Madhya Pradesh achieving 46 per cent, Telangana 28 per cent, West Bengal 23 per cent and Uttar Pradesh with 31 per cent target achievement.
When asked about the reason for Uttarakhand’s low target achievement, officials point out that considering state-specific geographical features, climatic conditions, state of transportation system, the cost of constructing a toilet in the mountainous state is comparatively higher than it is in the plains where both access to resources and convenient geography make the task of achieving the target easier. Geographical factors and other particular aspects may make the task comparatively harder in the mountainous rural areas of Uttarakhand but observers point out that the political fluctuations and related factors in the state have also affected the execution of developmental works including construction of toilets under Swachchh Bharat Mission. This is also among the major reasons for continued unplanned construction and skewed construction and urban development activities, they add.