Mission Swachh Punjab: 1015 Gram Panchayats Declared Themselves Open Defecation Free

- Rs. 15000 assistance to each household for constructing toilet

- Project with a budget of Rs.1200 crore, focuses on providing over 8 lac toilets apart from inducing behavorial change in the rural folks

The Mission Swachh Punjab made a giant leap with 1015 Gram Panchayats across the state declaring themselves open defecation free. With a sum of Rs. 1200 Crore, this program was launched with a vision to make Punjab open defection free and provide toilets to all poor people in the villages.

Disclosing this, a spokesman of the Punjab Government said that while the primary focus of the program is to bring in behavioral change to prevent open defecation, 8 lakh individual households toilets will also be constructed during the process.  All rural households without toilets are being  encouraged to construct toilets of their own choice and an incentive of Rs 15000/- per toilet is being provided to the households. Work has been going on in more than 3000 villages simultaneously.

He said, “In a rapid survey done by the world bank  just before the launch of the project indicated that only 54% of those who have toilets use these regularly. So though the program envisage the construction of 8 lakh toilets, the  primary focus of the the program is to change the behavioral of the people and  create demand for toilets and safe sanitation. Also contractors have been eliminated from the toilet construction; now the individuals , on their own, are constructing the toilets of their own choice. and an incentive of Rs. 15000 is being credited to their bank account directly.”

“In the  last six months, 36000 households have been provided with the toilets of their choice and 1015 Gram panchayat have declared themselves open defection free. The program has motivated the people to such an extent that these villages have formed Nigran committees which goes around the villages every morning to ensure that nobody is going for open defecation." He added.

He stated that the department aims to provide 5 lac toilets by the end of this year. With this, It is estimated that approximately 6000 villages shall be made open defecation free by the end of the year. The DWSS has also embarked upon a ambitious plan of providing free of cost water supply connection in all the houses in the village. The cost connection shall also be borne by the department. So all the house hold shall have access to safe drinking water supply and safe sanitation services. He said that the department of water supply & sanitation has mobilized 1000 motivators, 200 master motivators and departmental staff to implement this programme in all the villages of state. The motivators are using Community Lead Total Sanitation methodology to trigger the rural communities .