BHOPAL: Over 200 families in four villages of the Amla development block of Madhya Pradesh’s tribal dominated Betul district have been slapped with a penalty worth Rs 10 lakh for defecating in the open.
Out of these, 40 families are residing in just one village, Rambakhedi, where one of the families has been slapped penalty worth Rs 75,000, while another family has been fined Rs 52,000 for defecating in the open.
After notices slapping penalty were issued to families, in four villages of the Amla block, 80% of them have started constructing toilets. According to officials at the Amla Janpad Panchayat, the notices were served to the concerned families, as despite all possible efforts, these families were not cooperating with the Panchayat’s efforts to build toilets for them.
The notices were issued on Monday under the Madhya Pradesh Panchayat (Swatchhta Safai Tahat Nuisance Nivaran Evam Upsaman) Rules 1999, which provides for slapping penalty worth Rs 250 daily on those creating nuisance by spreading filth.
In Rambakhedi village, where 40 families that have been served notices, 30 families have reported to the authorities about having started digging holes for constructing toilets. On September 15, when the drive was started to dig pits for toilets, our block had set a target of 4000, but just 1500 pits were dug.
Even the pits that were dug were done mostly by government employees and not the villagers,” Amla Janpad Panchayat chief executive officer (CEO) Praveen Kumar Ivne said on Tuesday. With the villagers not cooperating for making their villages open defecation free, the 1999 rules against nuisance and filth were applied by penalizing the wrong doers at the rate of Rs 250 daily.