खुले में शौच से मुक्त भारत Open-Defecation Free (ODF) India

Every household in India will get a proper toilet and the entire country will be open-defecation free (ODF) much before the Modi government faces election next year, top government functionaries said. This is the biggest flagship programme led by the PM. The target of building toilets in rural areas is 11 times more than what is required in cities and towns.

However, the catch lies in changing people's behaviour remains a challenge. There is a tough task to manage the huge quantum of daily garbage generated across urban areas. In fact, experts have said availability of toilets and their maintenance are key to their use, particularly public toilets in urban areas.

In rural areas, on the other hand, the bigger challenge is to make the facility available to people. We need to take up both building toilets and behaviour change simultaneously in villages by involving people, motivators, local champions and village leaders. You can't expect people to use toilets unless they have one.

Rural India had achieved only 39% sanitation coverage till October 2014 when the Swachh Bharat Mission was launched. Over 5.9 crore toilets have been built and nearly 30 crore rural Indians have stopped defecating in the open since the launch of the mission. 290 districts in seven states of Sikkim, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Gujarat and Arunachal Pradesh have become open defecation free. We are expecting another 8-10 states to become ODF by March, taking the total to about 18-20. We expect 400 districts to be ODF by March.

Government estimates also show that the large scale construction of toilets has pushed economic activities and job generation. For construction of 60 million toilets in the last three-and-a-half years, about 1.44 billion man hours were logged in. This has resulted in financial gain of approximately Rs 4,400 crore for masons and labourers.

Further, while construction of toilets has seen massive implications for the economy in general, maintenance and repair also have a major chunk of the market.