New Delhi: West Bengal government has assured Centre of making the state Open Defecation Free (ODF) by implementing Centre's Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) scheme paving the way for the centre to declare Urban India as open defecation free.
Talking to ETV Bharat in an exclusive interview, VK Jindal, joint secretary in Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) said that the heads of Urban Local Bodies (ULB) and other government officials in West Bengal have assured of taking steps to make the state ODF.
"We have released funds to the state government and we were assured there they will implement the SBM scheme," said Jindal. Earlier, West Bengal Government neither take part in smart city competition (another flagship project of the central Government) nor in any other centrally sponsored project.
"Top officials from MoHUA including the secretary went to the state and interacted with state government officials," said Jindal.
Interestingly, urban areas of 35 states and union territories (4167 cities) have been certified with ODF under SBM scheme. Officials in MoHUA said that about 66 lakh individual households toilets constructed against mission target of 59 lakhs ever since the mission was announced in 2014.
In addition, about 5.9 lakh community toilets have also been constructed against the target of 5.08 lakh. "Till date this year, more than 500 cities across the country were certified with ODF plus whereas more than 250 cities were declared ODF plus plus," said Jindal and added that by next few years the ministry is expecting that all cities will be declared as ODF plus and ODF plus plus.
ODF plus means improved access to public toilets whereas ODF plus plus means the liquid waste and fecal sludge and septage management is done properly. Jindal attributed the success in achieving the SBM milestone on the behavioural change of the people.
"There are tremendous behavioural change amongst people...and we believe in the coming years there will be more positive developments," said Jindal. Recently, MoHUA has introduced the water plus protocol, designed to ensure that no untreated wastewater is discharged into the open environment or water bodies.
Interestingly, MoHUA has also teamed up with Google to improve ease of access to sanitation facilities.
Accordingly, 2,300 cities across India have uploaded more than 58,000 public toilets mapped on Google maps, covering more than 50 per cent of India's urban population.
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