Govt built 33,76,793 Household Toilets and 1,28,946 Community Toilet so far: Naidu
Around 33,76,793 individual household toilets and 1,28,946 community toilet seats have been built so far. 688 cities have been declared Open Defecation free (ODF) and 531 of them have been independently verified and certified as ODF.
Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat have declared all cities and towns as ODF. He also said that 100% door-to-door collection and transport of Municipal Solid Waste has been achieved in 43,200 wards out of the total 81,015 urban wards.
The Union Minister of Urban Development M.Venkaiah Naidu inaugurated the 9th foundation day of The Foundation for Restoration of National Values (FRNV) here recently. The event is co-sponsored by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and ‘Swachh Bharat’ is the theme of the event.
Dr E. Sreedharan, President, FRNV emphasized the importance of Swachh Bharat Mission and the need for public support and assistance towards the initiative. Cleanliness shall start from our heart, our home and our surroundings, he added.
M.Venkaiah Naidu complimented FRNV for selecting Swachh Bharat as the theme for its foundation day. Addressing the gathering he said, rapidly declining values and fading culture is a reason for unhygienic living conditions and lack of cleanliness in India. He said that there is a need to radically change our perception of ‘waste’ as ‘assets’ or ‘resources’ rather than something to be discarded.
He threw light on the role of women in this movement. Women are playing a key role in making this mission successful. He cited a few instances like a woman; Sangita Ahwale of Saikheda Village in Washim district of Maharashtra has sold her ‘mangalsutra’ to build a toilet. A Muslim woman in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh gifted a toilet to her new daughter-inn-law, since she did not want the new member of her family to suffer the way she did without a toilet.
Versova beach in Mumbai, which was infamous for its filth, has now been transformed into a clean and beautiful beach. People toiled for about 80-90 weeks and extracted a thousand tonnes of waste material. Afroz shah, a resident of Versova, owned this campaign. He started this mission in October 2015 and gradually people started joining it and it turned into a people’s movement. These are few of the instances that Naidu stated.
In a short span of about three years, the initiative Swachh Bharat Mission has become a people’s movement in the country and it is only because of the involvement of Public Representatives, SHGs, officials, media, NGOs, UN agencies, celebrities, educational institutions, trade unions, Business Icons and spiritual leaders.
Naidu appreciated the considerable work of FRNV in the space of sanitation, hygiene and cleanliness.
During the event M.Venkaiah Naidu has also released a Souvenir, which contains case studies of waste management.
