Telangana fails drinking water, toilet test

Hyderabad: Telangana districts, barring Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy, fare badly with regard to availability of drinking  water and toilet facilities in households.

In the entire Telangana state, only 54 per cent of households have water facilities while just 52 per cent have toilets. Adilabad and Mahbubnagar districts were the worst with just 30 per cent households having these facilities.

The assembly constituency-wise analysis conducted  by the Centre for Economic and Social Studies (Cess) and Unicef, Hyderabad, on Census 2011 data revealed these facts.

This is for the first time that Assembly constituency-wise data on drinking water and toilet facilities has been analysed.

This is vital for the TS government as it is launching the “Swachh Telangana-Swachh Hyderabad” initiative from May 16 to improve sanitation  facilities across the state.

The findings will enable the government and MLAs representing respective constituencies to plan the schemes accordingly and improve the situation.

“Telangana state has around 52.6 per cent  households with toilet facilities and 54.4 per cent with drinking water facilities. These figures are of Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy districts, which are mostly urban. If these districts are excluded, the remaining districts have toilet facilities of just 40.3 per cent and drinking water of 45.5 per cent,” said Prof. S. Galab, director, Cess.

Telangana state Legislative Assembly speaker S. Madhusudhana Chary, who released the data analysis book here on Thursday, said, “This shows how the consecutive governments had failed to provide even basic facilities for people even nearly seven decades after the country gained Independence. This book is useful for both the government and the legislators to know where the problem lies and what are the steps needed to improve the situation.”

Mr Chary added, “Though I have seen previous census reports, it was not possible to know the exact situation in my constituency. But now I am shocked to find that my own Bhoopalapally constituency in Warangal district is lagging behind as far as toilets and drinking water facilities are concerned. I will ensure that things get better within a year by planning schemes based on this data.”

Principal secretary of panchayat raj Raymond Peter said the latest data reflected the ground situation in Telangan state and the government was in the process of  overcoming the problem.

“Though this analysis pertains to census data taken more than four years ago,  there hasn’t been much change in the ground situation. Our department survey also states more or less the same. It is for this reason that the Telangan state government has taken up the Water Grid project to provide tap connections to each and every household by 2019. Similarly, it has also taken up the individual household toilets scheme to achieve Open Defecation Free status by 2019 in line with Swachh Bharat Mission,” Mr Peter said.