Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan: Government builds 7.1 lakh toilets in January

NEW DELHI: Construction of toilets under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream project, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, has gained momentum with 7.1 lakh individual household toilets being built in January, the highest for any month since the project was launched in October, government data showed.

But, with less than two months left for the fiscal year to close, the government is likely to miss this year’s target of constructing 1.2 crore toilets.

According to data, a total of 31.83 lakh toilets have been built between April 2014 and January 2015, which is 25.4% of the target for 2014-15. The programme entails an investment of nearly Rs 2 lakh crore over the next five years to construct 12 crore toilets in India.
A senior government official, however, told ETthat the ‘internal target’ for the year is 50 lakh and the ministry of drinking water and sanitation is on course to achieve it. “The targets on the website are to push states to do more and more,” the official said.

“However, we are confident of achieving the internal target set earlier under the erstwhile Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, i.e. 50 lakh household toilets for this year and in subsequent years as funds are not a constraint.”

In the 12th Five-Year Plan, an outlay of Rs 37,159 crore was set aside for rural sanitation under the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, launched by the previous UPA government.

Of this, only Rs 4,724 crore was utilised in the first two years of the plan, leaving the Modi government with Rs 32,435 crore of corpus to spend on the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, which seeks to make India ‘open defecation free’ by 2019.

To give a boost to the programme, the government has brought it in convergence with the rural housing scheme, Indira Awaas Yojana, and sought financial and technical support from the World Bank, besides asking corporates to undertake the project as part of their corporate social responsibility initiative.