The Government has admitted that Swachchh Bharat Mission which was launched with much fanfare by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last October, is yet to catch the fancy of the corporate sector.
“Corporate sector is not coming forward nor showing any dedication to build toilets in the rural areas and whatever is being done is done in a piece meal fashion,” said Rural Development Minister and the Minister of Drinking water and sanitation, Birender Singh at an event.
“Swachchh Bharat Abhiyan” and “Clean Ganga Mission” have been included as CSR activities under Schedule VII of the Companies Act, 2013 from October 24, last year.
Addressing a workshop on clean technologies for rural India, he also exhorted the NGOs to participate in the Clean India Mission with renewed zeal and assured them all support in this regard.
The Minister said that the State Governments were free to choose and adopt technologies approved by it to solve the problems of drinking water contamination and for to construction of cost effective toilets in the rural areas.
Stating that more than 54 technologies have been approved so far by the technology expert committee of the Drinking Water and Sanitation Ministry, Singh urged the States to adopt them as per the local needs on a priority basis as they are affordable, scalable, sustainable and socially acceptable.
However, he cautioned that merely achieving the physical target to make the country open Defecation Free by 2019 will not help in achieving the dream of the Prime Minister. “The newly built toilets must remain operational and sustainable.”
The Minister of State for Drinking Water and Sanitation, Ram Kripal Yadav said that women suffer more due to the absence of toilets in the rural areas and it is also directly linked with their security as most of the incidents of the rape happen when women go for open defecation. The Minister called for making cleanliness a people’s movement and laid stress on creating mass awareness for this.
Secretary, Drinking Water and Sanitation, Vijay luxmi Joshi said that constructing seven crore toilets by October 2, 2019 is not a big challenge but their usage is certainly a very big issue and for this mindset has to be changed.