LUCKNOW: Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of PM Narendra Modi, has become the first city in Uttar Pradesh to have successfully mapped 235 community toilets and urinals for tagging them on Google Maps. Visitors, outsiders and even locals can type Swachh Toilet on the Google Maps app for getting information on community toilets near them in the holy city.
Municipal Commissioner Nitin Bansal said of the total 361 community toilets constructed under the Swachh Bharat Mission, 235 were mapped and information about the remaining will be available soon. So far, this facility is available in cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Indore, and Bhopal.Bansal added that the municipal authorities were in the process of earning the status of ODF Plus for Varanasi, which has already been declared ODF. “We are slogging day in and day out to improve the cleanliness of our city.”
The Varanasi Municipal Corporation has already installed 17 feedback machines at these community toilets. Feedback immediately reaches a survey team in Delhi.
For the sanitation survey 2019, the government has set targets of ODF plus and ODF Double plus to the ODF cities. The ODF plus tag aims at motivating more and more people to use toilets and to take steps for maintaining cleanliness at community toilets and urinals.
Varanasi has soared up the cleanliness scale occupying the 32nd position in the Swachh Survekshan-2017, which is a part of the Modi government’s flagship Swachh Bharat Abhiyan programme, or Clean India Mission. The city was ranked 65th in 2016 and 418th in 2014.