C’garh among 19 States declared ODF so far

| | Raipur | in Raipur

Chhattisgarh is among 19 states which has achieved 100 per cent toilet construction coverage and has become Open Defecation Free (ODF), the Central Government has informed.

A total of 19 States/UTs, namely,Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Gujarat, Chandigarh, Daman and Diu, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Meghalaya, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Punjab, Mizoram, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Andaman& Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep and Andhra Pradesh have 100% toilet construction coverage and have become ODF, it informed.

As per Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) SBM(G) guidelines, villages are self-declared as ODF in the meeting of Gram Sabha.

Since its launch in October 2014, the Swchch Bharat Mission, the world’s largest sanitation program, has changed the behaviour of hundreds of millions of people with respect to toilet access and usage. About 300 million people have stopped defecating in the open since the Mission began, down from 550 million at the beginning of the programme to about 200 million today, it informed.

The National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey (NARSS) 2017-18, conducted by an Independent Verification Agency (IVA) under the World Bank support project to the Swachh Bharat Mission Gramin (SBM-G), has found that 93.4% of the households in rural India who have access to a toilet use it.

The NARSS also re-confirmed the Open Defecation Free (ODF) status of 95.6 per cent of villages which were previously declared and verified as ODF by various districts/States.

The survey was conducted between mid-November 2017 and mid-March 2018 and covered 92040 households in 6136 villages across States and UTs of India.

The IVA presented their findings to the Expert Working Group (EWG) constituted for oversight of NARSS, comprising representatives from organizations including the World Bank, UNICEF, Water Aid, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, India Sanitation Coalition, Sulabh International, Knowledge Links, NITI Aayog, Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation. The EWG noted the satisfactory completion of the survey.