Chhattisgarh women want cops to trace their ‘stolen’ toilets

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In a bizzarre incident, a Chhattisgarh mother-daughter duo lodged a complaint with the police alleging that toilets in their home had gone missing, leaving the cops bewildered.

Bela Bai Patel, 70 and her daughter Chanda, 45 living in Amarpur village in Bilaspur, filed the complaint last week alleging that the two toilets, proposed under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, had been constructed only on paper.

The duo submitted their application to the village panchayat in 2015 for the construction of two toilets in their house. But the work did not start even after a year of the approval, officials said.

When Bela and Chanda approached the janpad panchayat office last month to enquire about the status of the work, they were surprised to find that the toilets had already been made, at least that's what the documents said.

A local activist, Surendra Patel, sought information on the status of the toilets in Amarpur through an RTI query and as per the reply, the construction of toilets had been completed.

Toilets were only built on paper and not on the ground, said the activist.

Now the two women, both widows belonging to the Below Poverty Line (BPL) category, living in two different parts of the house, want their toilets to be traced and action against those involved in the "theft".

(With inputs from agencies)