Patna schoolchildren asked to arrange toilets at home

Move is part of the strategy to help declare Patna ‘open defecationfree’ city

Thousands of students enrolled in government and private schools have been given a fairly unique ‘homework’ — arrange for toilets at home, compulsorily.

Authorities said the Patna Municipal Corporation has issued letters to all schools, instructing that all enrolled students be told to submit an affidavits stating their homes have toilets. The printed affidavits say that none of their family members go out to defecate, in the open.

The students must submit the signed affidavits to their schools within a fortnight. The move is part of the strategy to help declare Patna, the capital of Bihar an “open defectionfree” state very soon.

Patna District Education Officer Jyoti Kumar told Gulf News by phone yesterday that it would take a lot of time to visit every house and convince people to install toilets at home. “So, we thought this would be a better idea to convey sanitation-related messages to every home, through the children,” the official added.

The order has put many students in danger of losing their education, as most of them come from poor backgrounds and don’t have toilets at home.

Bihar remains one of the worst performers in sanitation facilities. An official report says around 16.5 million households out of over the state’s 110 million population do not have toilets at home, forcing people to defecate in the open. Right now, only 308 villages out of the over 44,000 in Bihar have been declared free from “open defecation”, according to an official report.

Last year, the education department asked schoolteachers to make the rounds of rural areas, to spot any anyone defecating in the open and take their photos in order to “shame them”. Authorities also formed a committee of teachers in the respective areas, to monitor the drive’s progress. It drew bitter criticism, ultimately forcing the authorities to cancel the order.