BHUBANESWAR: Improving its position in the rural sanitation programme, the State has covered more than 46 lakh households under individual household latrine (IHHL) by end of January. The rural sanitation campaign in the State under Swachh Bharat Mission has gathered momentum with a quantum jump of 44 per cent recorded in IHHL over the last three years.Prior to the launch of Swachh Bharat Mission in 2014, only 12 per cent households (1.3 lakh houses) had access to toilets. After validation of base line survey in October 2014, target was set to cover around 82.34 lakh households of the State under IHHL. About 46.18 lakh houses have constructed toilets till last month, which is 56 per cent of the target.
The rural sanitation programme of the State was jointly reviewed by Chief Secretary AP Padhi and Union Secretary, Drinking Water and Sanitation, Parameswaran Iyer at a high-level meeting here on Wednesday. Collectors provided updates of their districts over video conference.The Chief Secretary directed the district collectors to scale up their coverage to at least 65 per cent by March. With only 43.78 pc of the households having access to toilets till November 2017, Odisha was among the bottom three states, just above Bihar and J-K. The Centre had requested the State to step up toilet construction work to cover all households by 2019.
Deogarh is the only district of the State which has been declared open defecation free (ODF). Around 7715 villages in 30 districts of the State have got ODF status.The Union Secretary advised the State Government to complete ODF status verification of these villages within 90 days from the day of ODF declaration and upload the results on the website.
Target was set to make 5 more districts open defecation free in different phases by end of June, 2018. The perspective list included districts like Jharsuguda, Balasore, Gajapati, Sambalpur and Sonepur.The Chief Secretary asked the district collectors to focus on behavioral change of the people and sustainability of the campaign. They were also advised to engage at least 4 swachhagrahis in each panchayat for carrying forward the campaign and sustainability in ODF status.