Nagpur: The Open Defecation Free (ODF) status to Nagpur city under the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban suffered a severe setback on Wednesday, after the civic cops caught four persons defecating in the open in Gandhibagh and Lakadganj zones. The Nagpur Municipal Corporation re-launched the drive to penalize citizens indulging in ODF as a special team from the Quality Council of India (QCI) set up by the ministry of urban development will visit the city on July 6 as a third-party assessor to verify sanitation and hygiene conditions.
Ahead of QCI team’s visit, the NMC also activated its ‘Good Morning Squad’ comprising zonal officer (sanitation), sanitary inspectors and civic cops from Wednesday morning to nab people indulging in open defecation.
In the last fiscal, the then municipal commissioner Ashwin Mudgal had taken keen interest to announce the city open defecation free. The NMC had also constructed over 12,000 toilets and also installed mobile toilets at places that reported defecation in the open like near Kalamna market, NIT’s transport plaza on Kamptee Road etc. Now, the NMC has revised its target of constructing toilets from 12,500 to 14,000 and has also successfully completed 12,103 toilets.
Despite being declared as ODF city in January this year, still many prefer to go out to relieve themselves, either out of habit and tradition or simply because they don’t find it comfortable to use toilet seats. Subsequently, from 5.30am the team visited all the vulnerable spots — mostly city’s outskirts, railway tracks etc. The Lakandganj zone found two persons near Kalamna market
defecating in open. Similarly, two persons were found defecating in old city areas under the Gandhibagh zone.
All the four were penalized Rs200 each, said an official from NMC health (sanitation) department. The officer, however, said the teams have also succeeded in preventing many other residents when they were going to answer nature’s call. “The drive will continue for few more days as the QCI visit would pave way for NMC to retain the ODF and a litter-free city status,” he said.
The NMC has also succeeded in bringing down the OD spots from 80 to 22. In November last year, the civic body had identified around 80 residential areas, mostly slums in city’s outskirts, some busy commercial areas such as railway stations, bus stands, markets, religious places and other important public places as ODF zones.
This time the squad will be focusing on 22 places within civic limits as open defecation and litter-free areas. The team will randomly inspect public places, names of which were submitted by the corporation, including slums, religious places, markets, railway stations, and Ganeshpeth bus stand area.
