Punjab cities, towns to be open defecation free by June 30

 All cities and towns of Punjab are all set to achieve Open Defecation Free (ODF) status by June 30, an official spokesman said today.         

So far 120 cities have achieved the status of being Open Defecation Free whereas the rest of the 47 cities/towns would in all likelihood complete the target by June 30, the spokesman said.

He said for the achievement of the mission objectives, the department has already released Rs 40.82 crore.

Recently, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis declared rural areas of the state open defecation-free and claimed the state has constructed the highest number of toilets in the country.

According to the baseline survey of 2012, around 55 per cent of the families in the state in rural areas did not have access to toilets, he said.

Rajasthan, geographically the largest state in the country, kept up its date with the Open Defecation Free (ODF) declaration deadline of March 31. Data on the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) site shows that targets have been achieved and 27 out of 33 districts have been declared ODF. Out of 191 towns and cities 188 have been declared ODF. The ODF programme is divided into rural and urban areas.    

Earlier, noting that close to 50% of rural population does not have access to toilet, the Centre on Tuesday asked banks and micro-finance institutions to enhance their credit disbursal for sanitation to achieve the goal of Swachh Bharat Mission of making India free from open defecation by 2019.

Addressing a conference on 'Innovative Financing for Clean India' here, Rural Development and Drinking Water and Sanitation Minister Birender Singh said the Finance Ministry has included water and sanitation as new fields for priority sector lending by commercial banks but this "monumental policy change must translate from intent to action".