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Bhubaneswar: The Union government’s flagship sanitation programme-Swachh Bharat Mission (Rural) which is floundering in the state due to its poor coverage compared to most of the other states currently need to build around 15 lakh more toilets to ensure universal coverage.
As per the latest update from the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, the nodal agency monitoring the sanitation mission in the country, Odisha has achieved 80 per Individual Household Latrine (IHHL) coverage. This comes at a time when most of the Indian states have completed their targets and stand at 100 per cent coverage.
The statistics from the ministry Sunday claimed that 15,22,377 more toilets are needed to be constructed in the state to ensure universal coverage of the uncovered households in the state. The detailed analysis of the mission claimed that before the launch of the mission in 2014 in Odisha, out of the total 79,44,765 households, merely 9,40,173 (11.83%) had toilets. Now after around five years of the mission, the state has been able to have a total of 64,22,388 (80.83%).
The statistics from the ministry claimed that there are some districts in Odisha which need to construct lakhs of toilets to declare themselves has Open Defecation Free (ODF) districts of the state. According to the latest information till February 3, the worst performing district was Kalahandi which is still to construct 1,59,677 toilets to ensure 100 per cent coverage. Currently it has been able to reach to only 50.30 per cent of its target.
Similarly there is also an arduous task for other districts too to move ahead in the mission. Mayurbhanj district in the state has a pending target of 1,90,536 toilets. However as per their target they have completed 62 per cent of their coverage but it is facing the Herculean task of constructing 1.90 lakh toilets.
The Centre meanwhile has been aiming to make Odisha an ODF state by the end of March 2019.
Some other lagging districts now include-Kendrapara (1,01,968 pending toilet construction), Keonjhar (98,015 toilets) and Bargarh (84,181 toilets). On the other hand eight districts out of the 30 districts from the state have been declared to have ensured universal coverage.