Hubballi: In a momentous achievement, Vice President Venkaiah Naidu has declared Nargund in Gadag district as the first open defecation free taluk in Karnataka.
The people in the taluk, who were in the forefront of the Mahadayi movement, took a pledge to protect the environment and dignity of women at a mammoth convention held at Konnur village on Tuesday. The Vice President exhorted them to convert the Swatchata Abhiyan into a mass movement through community participation to improve sanitation. Explaining the success stories of several children who became role models by holding protests for construction of toilets in their villages, he said that over two lakh villages have become free from open defecation and the population having toilet facility in the country has increased to 72 percent.
Toilets have been built on a war footing in the taluk in the last few months and people will not face any water problem at this juncture due to good rainfall during the last few days and the overflowing Malaprabha river. The villagers, who converged for the function, claimed there is no scarcity of water for the toilets. The water problem will arise only in summer as they will get water once or twice in a week if the underground water table recedes when Malaprabha river dries up. However, many of them contended that the toilets built for them are very small and will not be comfortable for them.
"Sanitation has improved to a great extent after everyone built toilets in our village. Only a few have not constructed toilets as they live in rented houses. We are using borewell water and the panchayat has made arrangements for storage of water by constructing tanks. Five Reverse Osmosis units are supplying drinking water at 10 paise per litre and this has helped us keep diseases at bay", said Konnur villager Shanmukappa Hurakadli.
Rural development and panchayat raj minister H.K. Patil urged Union minister for drinking water and sanitation Ramesh Jigajinagi, who was present on the occasion, to provide Central aid to build bathrooms for rural households along with toilets.
