Ballari to be Open-defecation free

Ballari: In a bid to ensure that the one rich district of Ballari is declared open defecation-free by August 15, the Ballari Zilla Panchayat has taken up several programmes that includes holding awareness workshops, felicitation of gram panchayat presidents and vice-presidents for their successful implementation of the programme to motivate other elected representatives and officials  to expedite the process of construction of individual toilets in their jurisdiction.

As on July 24, 13,709 toilets remain to be constructed to get the district the open defecation-free tag. The toilet construction fund is ?15,000 for those belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, of which the Union government contribution is ? 7,200, while that of the state government is ? 7,800. For others, the construction cost is ?12,000 with the Union government giving ?7,200 and the state government, ?4,800.

Though work started long ago, the number of toilets constructed was only around 2.39 lakh toilets as of July 2018 (1.02 lakh were constructed during 2016-17). Later,  by adopting various awareness programmes  and roping in banks to extend loans, an additional 21,925 toilets were added in the first four months (up to July) during this financial year.

Of the 199 gram panchayats, 133 have completed the task and have been declared open defecation-free. The work of getting toilets constructed in the remaining 66 gram panchayats is going on briskly.

Zilla panchayat president Bharati Thimmareddy and Chief Executive Officer K.V. Rajendra felicitated several gram panchayat presidents and vice-presidents at an awareness workshop here on Monday.  Besides, they announced a special grant of ?1 crore to all gram panchayats that have made achievements in getting toilets constructed, which has to be used for development works.