India will be open defecation-free before Oct 2019 deadline: Minister Hardeep Singh Puri

Speaking about Swachh Bharat Mission, he said with public participation there is definitely a behavioural change towards hygiene which has yielded positive results.
Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri during Swachhata Symposium in Bengaluru, on Saturday | Express
Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri during Swachhata Symposium in Bengaluru, on Saturday | Express

BENGALURU: The Union government’s mission to make India an open defecation-free (ODF) country by October 2019 will be achieved much earlier, Union Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs, Hardeep Singh Puri, said. He was speaking at a Swachhata symposium in the city on Saturday.
As on March 14, 2018, as many as 1,867 cities/urban local bodies have been certified open defecation-free and the government is confident of achieving the target within the stipulated time, he said.

He recalled the target set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make India ODF by October 2, 2019, when Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary will be celebrated. “Ten states and four Union Territories have become ODF and two more states are likely to achieve it in the near future,” he said. Though Karnataka is not in the list, he said the state was aiming to achieve the tag by October 2018.

Speaking about Swachh Bharat Mission, he said with public participation there is definitely a behavioural change towards hygiene which has yielded positive results.

Speaking about Smart Cities, Singh said he has seen the fastest rate of implementation compared to other parts of the world. According to a report, by 2030, 40% (60 crore) of the population will be living in metropolitan cities/urban areas, he said. “We cannot shy away from the fact that people will migrate to cities for their economic growth”, he said. “It is just that we have to provide better infrastructure and the same time initiatives to decongest cities also have to be implemented,” he said.

Taking a dig at Congress, he said, “ I personally feel cities of our country were neglected for the past 67 years and were crying for attention. We are now on a mission to make urban spaces more livable. I do not want to confine these initiatives to government agencies. We need involvement of citizens and private companies,” he said.  

“We have formed a smart cities apex group consisting of the project managers of all the 99 smart cities announced. We will be meeting in April to discuss and share ideas along with the stakeholders,” he said.

‘I regret I didn’t learn Kannada’
Hardeep Singh Puri also recalled his association with Karnataka.  “My association with the state is deep-rooted since 1975 when I got married to Lakshmi Puri. She is from Bengaluru. But I did not learn Kannada as we were busy in our lives,” he said. Jain translated Hardeep Singh’s English speech into Kannada during the event.
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