MADURAI: The District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), as part of the Clean India campaign, has asked government employees in the district to declare they are using toilets in their homes with an aim to make government employees role models for keeping the country clean.
If government employees do not become role models for vital projects like NBA and use toilets in their homes, people in rural and urban households without toilets may not take the campaign for total sanitation seriously, said the DRDA official.
Under the state government’s drive titled ‘Clean India Clean Tamil Nadu’, the DRDA has sent application forms to all state and central government employees requesting details of the number of members in their families, their respective occupations, addresses, and mobile phone numbers. In addition they have been asked to declare there are toilets in their houses. The employees are also being asked to enclose photographs of the family head and of the toilets in their houses to ensure that they are not making false claims as some rural households might do. A DRDA official said photos of toilets would give concrete details to their claims.
Under Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA), a community-led call for total sanitation in rural areas, DRDA is providing funds for constructing toilets in its campaign against open defecation, according to a DRDA official.
S Murugan, District Secretary, Tamil Nadu Post Graduate Teachers Association, however, said while welcoming the move to document the use of toilets, demanding photos of toilets in their homes was upsetting government employees.