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National

All schools to have toilets by year end

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: All schools across the country will have toilet facilities by the year end, Union Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said on Thursday.

While Sikkim, Puducherry, Mizoram and Haryana have already achieved this target, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Jharkhand, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Rajasthan will do so by July.

The remaining States that include Arunachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Punjab, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand will be able to cover all schools by November.

Talking to reporters to share the outcome of State Secretaries of Rural Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation here, Mr. Singh said that the progress of the 587 project districts implementing the Total Sanitation Campaign was reviewed, and the meeting was informed that the sanitation coverage had gone up to 54 per cent.

However, in Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Bihar, Jharkhand, Puducherry, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Daman and Diu, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Meghalaya, Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir, the progress was not up to the mark.

These States and Union territories were asked to release funds to the gram panchayats to speed up the work.

Stressing that awareness and information to the last person in the village is the key to success for the campaign, Mr. Singh said the guidelines provide for incentives to any motivator in the village such as the Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA), anganwadi worker, and teachers. Most of the States have even provided honorarium to such ‘motivators.’

Sikkim has already issued directions, on the suggestion of the Minister, that an individual should be debarred from contesting panchayat elections if he/she does not have a toilet in the house.

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