Man uses toilet fund to buy phone, wife revolts
RANCHI: Jharkhand’s Rajesh Mahato never thought of buying a smartphone will earn his wife’s wrath. Lakshmi Devi was furious after she got to know that Mahato, a resident of Bhuli Township in Dhanbad district, spent the money he received to build a toilet in their house as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan to buy the phone.
Devi not only destroyed the phone but also sat on a hunger strike for two days demanding that he build a toilet. “I should not have purchased the phone from the toilet fund as it triggered a Mahabharat in my house. I now realise how humiliating it is for a woman to go out to defecate,” Mahato, a farmer, said.
Under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, beneficiaries are paid ~12,000 in two instalments. The first instalment of ~6000 is given immediately after a person is cleared as beneficiary and the rest is paid on completion of the toilet. Mahato had to give up to the pressure from his wife and began the construction of toilet in the house by taking a loan from a moneylender.
Mahto said he got the first instalment in June for constructing a toilet in his house from the Dhanbad municipal corporation (DMC). But instead of spending the money on the toilet, he bought a smartphone .When Devi asked him about the inordinate delay in the construction of toilet, he produced the smartphone seeking her excuse for his “mistake”. However, Devi lost her cool and in a fit of rage threw his phone on the ground. And, she did not stop there. Devi sat on a hunger strike after a heated argument.