Young people in slums at Raghupati Nagar, Jagannath Nagar and Phulasundari Street on Saturday submitted a memorandum to the Slum Improvement Officer and the Health Officer of the Berhampur Municipal Corporation (BMC), with an action plan to overcome the problem of open defecation.
The coverage of household toilets in slums in Brahmapur city has beentardy due to poor implementation of the scheme by the BMC, poor awareness among people and delay in getting the support subsidies.
59.9 per cent of the slum dwellers openly defecate due tounavailability of households and public toilets. This creates an unhealthy and unhygienic situation in slums and reasons for many diseases for the children, adolescent and women. There are only 24 public toilets and 10 of them are dysfunctional due to poor maintenance and unhygienic condition. Among the 11, 7,541 slums population only 3per cent households use community toilets. There is immense delay in construction of new public toilets making the city dwellers defecate in open areas.