Bhopal: A collector in a Madhya Pradesh district has adopted an unconventional way to break the old habit of people defecating in the open by literally catching them with their “pants down”.
Sagar district collector Vikash Narwal early on Monday morning made a round of a water body in the district headquarters town along with a team of officials to catch the people relieving themselves in the open “red-handed” and shame them to free them of their old habit.
“I have found several people defecating in the open close to a water body in Sagar town when I was making round of the area as a part of the Swachh Bharat campaign. I asked my official team members to confiscate their ‘lota’ (water-filled pitchers).
I also pulled up these people for not using their home toilets and going out. I warned them of monetary penalty if they do not change their behaviour,” Mr Narwal told this newspaper.
“I got angry because I noticed a public toilet barely a few feet from the place and nobody was using it,” he added. Mr Narwal, who has set a target to make Sagar town open defecation free (ODF) by December 31, said he mulled to impose penalty on those who went out to defecate after the deadline.
According to him, around 6,000 out of the nearly 80,000 households in the district headquarters town of Sagar, had been without toilets when the Swachh Bharat campaign began a year ago.
Only 800 households are now have no toilets. Construction of loos in these households would be completed by the end of 2016.
Figure this
Launched on oct. 2, 2014 by Narendra Modi with an aim to eradicate open defecation by 2019, here’s swacchh bharat abhiyan’s record card.
26,64,540 constructions achieved for individual toilets.
1,04,802 constructions achieved under community and public toilets plan.
405 - No. of cities which are open defecation free.
39,936 - wards achieved in 100 % door-to-door waste collection.
88.4 mega watt is current production under waste to energy conversion.
1,27,508.7 metric ton (production for year) under waste to compost.
