As the corporate sector in Odisha is reluctant to provide funds for clean India mission, the desired outcomes in the Swacchta Abhiyan in the urban zones are achieved, admit officials.
While the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) is the flagship programme of the Union Government, the corporate majors are not taking interest to spend their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds in the scheme implemented in the urban areas.
Though a new law on CSR encourages the corporate sector to spend their CSR funds in the areas, where they operate, the absence of mandatory spending for the Swachhata Abhiyan is coming as a hindrance, admit officials.
Accordingly, the State Government has approached the Union Government to ask the corporate sector to contribute a fixed amount of their CSR fund for the activities under the SBM, especially in the urban areas of the State.
While the most important objective of the SBM is to end open defecation, in order to achieve the objective, construction of toilets is the best way forward to achieve the desired outcome.
However, much funds flow is not there in individual household toilets, community and public toilets, resulting in incomplete projects. As such, targets in toilet construction are not achieved.
For example, a total 3, 78, 595 individual toilets were to be set up in Odisha during the mission period. But efforts of the State Government are not reflected in results for several reasons.
One of those is the amount of incentive given to people for individual toilet, which is Rs 10,000 in urban areas, and Rs 12,000 in rural areas.
There is a demand to equalise the incentive for both urban and rural zones. The Ministry of Urban Development needs to take a call in this regard.
Similarly, for community toilets and public toilets, construction cost of each one is estimated at Rs 98,000, where as experience shows the cost is going up to Rs 2.3 lakh for a community or public toilet. So, majority of these projects are left unfinished.
For this purpose, cost of construction of the community and public toilet needs to be increased and at least 75 per cent of the cost should be borne by the Union Government, urged the Odisha Government, said sources.
The MoUD needs to take a final decision in this regard as soon as possible looking at the mission target, pointed out a senior official in the Department of Housing and Urban Development.