Bhubaneswar: The state is now all set to be declared 100 per cent covered under the ambitious flagship programme of the Modi government— Swachh Bharat Mission (Rural) by the end of the month. With sudden jump of performance of the state, the target has been almost reached.
The state which had a mere coverage of 13.71 before the launch of the mission in 2014, has now constructed lakhs of toilets to ensure every household under the mission gets one toilet each to stop the menace of open defecation.
While most of the Indian states except Odisha and Goa have become 100 per cent open defecation free, the sluggish pace of Odisha with low coverage was preventing the country from being declared Open Defecation Free (ODF). However, in the past few months the state has seen a drastic improvement in their toilet construction statistics.
As on Sunday, the total coverage of toilets in Odisha stood at 99.66 per cent. Moreover, out of the 30 districts four remained behind their target.
As per the latest information from the Ministry of Jal Shakti the four laggard states of Odisha need to build 26,061 more toilets to declare themselves 100 per cent ODF.
According to sources in the state government, the department is working hard to achieve the target before the end of this month. The Union government had earlier fixed the final deadline of October 2, 2019 to make the country Open Defecation Free (ODF) by ensuring one toilet to each household.
The districts which are lagging behind are Malkangiri, Kalahandi, Nayagarh and Keonjhar. All other remaining districts have completed their target. Before the launch of the mission, a total of 7,71,72,09 households were identified out of which only 1,03,58,17 had toilets then.