Tamil Nadu lags behind in toilet construction

In a report about progress made under various components under SBM, Tamil Nadu, which has to construct 1,26,795 sanitary toilets for individual homes, has only managed to complete 280 toilets since the start of the mission in October 2014.

SBM, which is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s project to make India open defecation free by 2019, envisions construction of around 37.5 lakh sanitary latrines in Indian homes across the 35 states and union territories.

Of the 12,865 community toilets that it has started work on, Tamil Nadu has completed 2,048 toilets while the state has failed to complete even a single public toilet of the 500 that it had proposed.

Speaking to DC, activist ‘Paadam’ A. Narayanan said the data provided to the Centre by TN urban local bodies were generally unreliable.

“There is inconsistency. But the question is whether all these toilets would rid rural Tamil Nadu of open defecation. Because attitudes of people have hardly changed,” he said. As far as Chennai is concerned, rampant open defecation is in practice in north Chennai, Narayanan said.

“There is need for community toilets in the locality because of the squatters and slum dwellers. But it has been a colossal failure for Chennai corporation, which has in the last five years built very few sanitary community toilets,” he added. However, officials insist that the state was only delayed a bit in SBM’s implementation.

“We have taken some time to survey and arrive at a good design and mobilise vendors. We are progressing well now and are on course (to hit our target). We have completed about 1,500 toilets now,” said a senior official.