Sneha, a 12-year-old girl from Jharana Basti here, depicts her story how people peep at them while they defecate and bath in open. Dignity of life being hampered due to not having toilet was something that she and her friends have faced since they have realised their life in slum.
Open defecation has impacted many kids adversely and most of them have suffered from diarrhea and other water and sanitation-related ailments.
To create awareness on the bare need of toilets, Humara Bachpan, a national campaign working on the living condition of urban children, staged a street play Paribartan in the premises of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) with an aim to sensitise the civic officials. BMC Mayor AN Jena, Commissioner Sanjib Mishra and other officials witnessed the play and applauded it.
Open defecation is rampant in Odisha, particularly in slum areas. Between 1991 and 2001, urban population has grown nearly twice. While 40 per cent of urban households in the State do not have access to a latrine, another 11 per cent have sharing toilets.
As per the 2011 census, 49.6 per cent of households do not have any bathing facility and 1.7 lakh households defecate in the open. Besides poverty, lack of tenure, housing and environmental conditions in slums constrain the urban poor from gaining access to safe sanitation. There are more than 400 slums in the city and a survey reveals that around 30 per cent of households dispose of infant excreta in the open.
Odisha has developed a sanitation strategy, goals of which are to be achieved over a period of six years (2012-18). But the funds allotted for this purpose was only `18.77 Cr during 2012-13 which reduced to `50 lakh for 2013-14.