Now, ‘whistleblowers’ to stop defecation in public!

Hubli: He’s a whistleblower of a different kind. Gadag Zilla Panchayat executive officer, S B Shettennavar,  has  been visiting villages brandishing a stick and blowing on a whistle  to shame  people into giving up  defecating in the open and build toilets in their houses instead.

All  staff of gram panchayats too have been ordered to carry out the stick and whistle campaign, which seems to be paying off  as  43,000 toilets have been built in the district in merely 20 days since it began.

The Zilla Panchayat CEO came up with the innovative campaign after exhausting all other methods like  street plays, folk songs and even appeals through loudspeakers to the villagers to build toilets. When an offer of a Rs 12,000 subsidy to every family for building a toilet too did not persuade many to give up defecating in the open, he  formed  male and female teams and sent them to villages where the practice was most common, armed with sticks and whistles.

Panchayat development officers (PDOs), anganwadi and ASHA workers and  school teachers too have been roped in to reach out to the villagers. “We are carrying the sticks to protect ourselves as our staff have been attacked in the past and we are blowing whistles to embarass villagers  defecating in the open and encourage them to build toilets,” Mr Shettennavar explains, adding that his staff will also go  door-to-door  and issue the work orders on the spot for building toilets by offering a subsidy under Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan.

The Bidar Zilla Panchayat, which has estimated that around a lakh families have no toilets in the rural  parts of  Gadag district,  has set itself  a target of building at least 85,000 toilets  within the next three months.