The Ganga riverside is proving to be a major spoiler in the Government’s ambitious Swachchh Bharat Mission (SBM), which marked one year of its completion last week on October 2.
The Modi Government surpassed the year’s target for constructing individual household toilets in the rural areas by more than 30 lakh (90 lakh toilets against the goal of 60 lakh), but the snail-paced work under the SBM in the habitations along the Ganga in five States through which the river flows has seen only around 3 lakh toilets having been constructed against a target of 15 lakh.
Similarly, a recent review by the Water and Sanitation Ministry on the first anniversary of the Mission, has also revealed that as on September 29, just 214 toilets have been constructed against a target of 5,890 toilets in the aganwadis and 23 sanitary complexes against a total 1,718 proposed in riverine States namely Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand.
There are a total 1,652 gram pancahyats situated on the banks of the Ganga in these five States with the highest being in Uttar Pradesh with 955 villages.
The NDA Government aims to prevent people from relieving themselves on the banks of the holy river by constructing toilets alongside it by 2019, a senior official from the Ministry, which is supervising the implementation of the SBM in rural areas besides Ganga riverside told The Pioneer.
However, the performance has been better in the riverside schools where toilets’ construction surpassed the target. Against target of 639 toilets, 5,890 have already been constructed in these States.
State-wise, West Bengal tops the list of five states in constructing individual toilets in the households. In the last one year, it has constructed 2,04,357 toilets against target 4,68,159, Uttar Pradesh has constructed 54,935 toilets (target 4,35,184 toilets), Uttarakhand has built 2,463 toilets (9,987 toilets).
However, Bihar and Jharkhand have lagged behind, having installed
just 16,434 toilets and 6,377 toilets respectively against the goal of 5,84,449 toilets and 22,327 toilets’ construction in one year since the launch of the Mission. The States were to provide a total of 6,32,780 toilets and 887326 toilets in the houses belonging to the BPl and APl categories respectively during the year, but in actual a total 143891 toilets and 140875 toilets were constructed.
According to the Ministry, except West Bengal, none of the other States along the Ganga bank have managed to construct toilets in the aganwadis as on September 29.
Again, when compared to the other States, West Bengal took a lead in construction of sanitary complex too, though the pace was quite slow. Against a target of 1,522 sanitary complexes in one year, it completed 19 while Jharkhand and Uttarakhand reported construction of one and three sanitary complexes respectively. Bihar and Uttar Pradesh reported nil during the period, said the official.
Unhappy at the slow pace of implementation of the SBM on the Ganga banks, the Ministry has now asked the States to speed up its implementation.
“The progress of implementation of the Ganga Action Plan of under SBM (Gramin) is not in tune with the action plan submitted earlier by the States,” said Christina Kujur, undersecretary (SBM-G) in a letter to the States on October 5.
The 1,500-mile-long Ganga flows through one of the most populated regions of the Indo-Gangetic plains, supporting a population of more than 40 crore, almost a third of the country’s total. More than Rs 5,000 crore has been spent on cleaning the Ganga in the past 28 years with no substantial results.
The worst of it is that cities and towns along the Ganges produce 3 billion litres of sewage per day but only 1.2 billion litres are treated. Most of the waste drains into the Ganges.
The SBM, which was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in urban and rural areas on October 2 last year, is expected to cost the Government exchequer over Rs 2 lakh crore over the five-year period.
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