Sanitation cover has sped up: Modi

NEWDELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday reiterated his government’s commitment towards enhancing cleanliness and sanitation facilities across the country.

“Today, on World Toilet Day, we reiterate our commitment towards enhancing cleanliness and sanitation facilities across the nation. We, in India, take pride at the remarkable speed with which sanitation cover has increased in the last four years. The movement for a cleaner India and ensuring better sanitation facilities is a people’s movement,’’ Modi said.

The PM had launched the mission in October 2014 to eliminate open defecation, manual scavenging, promoting scientific processing of solid waste, and bringing a change about sanitation practices. He credited 1.30 crore Indians, particularly women and youngsters, for tak- ing the lead in the movement. The World Toilet Day was marked to commemorate the Swachh Bharat Mission and aimed at increasing mass awareness about sanitation.

Separately, lieutenant governor Anil Baijal said the feature of locating public toilets on Google Maps had the potential to solve a major issue of finding clean, functional and usable toilets.

“While there is a need to improve the condition of several public toilets, I am glad to note that there are over 33,000 toilets across 800 cities already live and open to reviews from citizens on Google,” the L-G said at a workshop organised by housing and urban affairs ministry under Swachh Bharat Mission-urban.

The ministry said 19 states and Union Territories were open defecation free (ODF) in urban areas besides 94% towns and cities, marked ODF. It has been achieved by the construction of 60.53 lakh individual toilets and 4.7 lakh community toilets.