Odisha government has set a target of cent percent coverage in construction of household toilets under the Swachh Bharat Mission by December 2018 as it has registered a 51 per cent coverage by March, said official sources here on Monday.
The households having toilet has increased to 51 per cent by end of March, 2018 from a mere 10.58 per cent in the October, 2014. This was known from the review meeting taken by Cabinet Secretary Pardeep Kumar Sinha over a video conferencing on Monday.
Development Commissioner and Additional Chief Secretary R Balakrishnan along with Principal Secretary, Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water Deo Ranjan Kumar Singh and Mission Director Mrs Roopa Mishra participated in the conference.
Mr Balakrishnan said, “More than 6.23 lakh individual household toilets have been completed during the current financial year. Field level actions have been expedited to raise this level to 56 per cent by 10 April, 2018”.
Mr Singh said that target has been to cover 100 per cent households by end of December, 2018. Available data show, presently over 14,000 Swechhagrahis have been engaged at village level.
Along with them around 1 lakh para government workers are working in the field for promoting safe sanitation practices and use of toilets. As of now, the district of Deogarh have been declared as open defecation free (ODF) district.
Jharsuguda district will be ODF recognition within a fortnight. Govt has set it eye on declaring 4 more districts ODF by 1st quarter of the financial year 2018-19. These districts are Balasore, Gajpati, Sambalpur and Sonepur.
The annual implementation plan for 2018-19 have been made with total outlay of Rs 5681.44 crore out of which the Centre will provide Rs 3408.86 crore and state will provide Rs 2271.94 crore. The beneficiary share in terms of labour will be around Rs. 62 lakhs.