With only 1.21 lakh toilets constructed, the Central Government seems to be racing against time to ensure toilets in all schools across the country in another two months to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise to the nation in his first Independence Day speech last year.
While the target is for constructing 4.19 lakh toilets under the Swachchh Vidyalaya initiative, only 1.21 lakh toilets have been completed so far and two lakh toilets are under advance stage of completion, Education Secretary Vrinda Sarup on Tuesday said.
“Well what I can see from monitoring... a lot of energy is there among people towards completion of the toilets,” she told reporters when asked if she was confident of meeting the July deadline. Sarup along with Higher Education Secretary SN Mohanty were addressing the media to highlight the Ministry’s achievement on the completion of Modi Government’s one year in office.
HRD Minister Smriti Irani was away in Amethi to celebrate the occasion. In his Independence Day speech last year, Modi had promised that “Next year when we stand here, every school should have toilets for girls and boys”.
She said the Ministry was regularly monitoring the developments with the states in fulfilling mission which is also being supported by central PSUs and private players. The PSUs have committed to construct 1.67 lakh toilets and 4,562 toilets by private sector. Another 1,600 toilets are being committed under the Swachchh Bharat Kosh initiative.
Sarup said states like West Bengal have a targer of 36,000 toilets and Andhra Pradesh a target of 35,000 toilets. To a question if the 17 per cent cut to the education sector his year would impact various programmes, Mohanty replied in negative, saying in the “near term, it will not dislodge our priorities”.
He said programmes like RUSA would also not be impacted much with the cuts as it is still in the early years of implementation. However, he said they are in talks with other Ministries as far as smooth implementation of the scholarship programmes are concerned as the recent hike in the scholarship amount has impacted the Ministry by about Rs600 to Rs700 crore.