Belagavi district, which is racing against time to meet its target of building toilets in two lakh households in one year, has successfully completed construction of 40,867 units in five months. It has issued work orders for 95,600 toilets which are expected to be built in the next few months.
The Belagavi Zilla panchayat, implementing the Swachh Bharat Mission, has used some innovative methods to motivate people to build toilets. Officials used Raksha Bandhan where brothers gifted sisters with toilets and organised a felicitation ceremony for pregnant woman who had forced their families to build toilets.
Belagavi has thus become the fifth district in the State to build the highest number of toilets, after Kolar, Davangere, Hassan and Mysuru.
While Kolar built 74,854 toilets in this financial year, Davangere built 65,096, Hassan 63,681 and Mysuru 43,410 toilets.
Of the 40,867 toilets built in Belagavi district, 34,679 were for below poverty line households and 6,188 were for above poverty line households. A survey in 2012 had noted that Belagavi, the district with the highest population after Bengaluru, had around five lakh households without toilets. “We set ourselves a target of two lakh units in one year. Of that, we have succeeded in initiating work on 1,36,467 units. Gram panchayat officers have completed 40,867 units and have issued work orders for another 95,600 units. We hope to complete the 64,000 in the next few months and hope to declare the district open defecation-free before the end of this financial year,” he said
R. Ramachandran, zilla panchayat chief executive officer, gave the credit to the people of the district. “They realised the ill effects of open defecation and opted for construction and use of toilets,” he said.
Officers were trained and regularly monitored by senior officials at the taluk and district levels. Panchayat development officers were trained in using a software tool that helped them capture the photograph of the toilet being constructed.
The CEO monitored the funds allocated and released for construction on a daily basis.
”When the progress was slow, I monitored the transactions twice a day. This was communicated to the taluk officers and panchayat development officers. This helped us speed up the pace of construction,” Mr. Ramachandran said.