NEW DELHI: The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently hailed the NDA government’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and even as the Centre’s own target of making India Open Defecation Free (ODF) approaches fast, around 18,000 villages across the country are yet to be declared ODF.
A total of 18,134 villages are yet to be declared ODF with Uttar Pradesh topping the list of with 7,198 villages. It is followed by Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra which have 2,016 and 1,076 villages respectively which are yet to be declared ODF.
Ministry officials, however, are upbeat and claim they are well on course to meet the target. “If you see the numbers in percentage, it amounts only to two per cent of villages. We have about seven months left. We will definitely achieve the target of making India ODF by March 2019,” a drinking water and sanitation ministry official said.
There are three states —Kerala, Manipur and Sikkim — which can boast of being ODF while some others like Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Haryana are close to being declared ODF. They have 57, 65 and 91 villages respectively which are yet to be declared ODF.
Ministry officials claim that it was a conscious effort on the government’s part to effectively implement the scheme in regions which are considered to be remote. “We took a conscious decision to reach out to the remotest of places and the results are there for everyone to see. The northeastern region, which has been neglected by governments, is one of the best performing regions in the country. Two of the three states which have been declared ODF are from the region. We are putting in a similar effort in other regions of the country as well,” the official said.
Experts have mixed opinions on the trend.
While some say that the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has progressed as expected, others are sceptical about its implementation. “If the data is true, it is a remarkable achievement for the government. Also, WHO would not praise the scheme if they did not see merit in it. If you calculate, they have covered 98 per cent of villages in four years and I do not see any reasons why the remaining two per cent cannot be covered in the next seven months,” Professor Pallabh Bhattacharya of the Symbiosis Institute of Rural Studies said.
Profess HR Solanki of the National Institute of Rural Development, Hyderabad said the scheme cannot be termed successful just by stacking up numbers. “The real question here is if the toilets that have been built are being used. The Centre cannot achieve anything by constructing toilets and letting them be unused. They need to educate and make people aware of the benefits of not defecating in the open,” he said.