Swachh sink: 3,574 Andhra Pradesh leaders have no toilets

VIZIANAGARAM: While the Prime Minister is harping on a swachh and open defecation-free India, some public representatives don't seem to have any issues with painting the countryside yellow.

Digest this: 3,574 local public representatives in the district don't have their own toilets at home! This was pointed out by the Vizianagaram district collector, Vivek Yadav, while holding a meeting with officials at the collectorate on Saturday. Yadav was so unhappy with such netas that he instructed officials to read out their names during the next mandal parishad territorial constituency (MPTC) meet.

Pointing out that 35 MPTCs in the district did not have toilets, the collector urged officials and public representatives to set an example for the general public. Giving the break-up, he said that, as per a survey , out of the total 3,574 local public representatives, 120 sarpanchas and 3,419 ward members in the district did not have toilets of their own.

Stressing the need for a change in the way peo ple look at this issue, Yadav said, "Unless there is a change in mindset, any such exercise would not meet its goals. People have to be educated on the need for private toilets ."

Yadav noted that much work had to be done even on the public buildings front to make them ODF .He said there were 62 schools, 109 gram panchayat buildings and 428 anganwadi buildings in the district that had no toilets. He also urged the public to understand that Swachh Bharat rankings of Vizianagaram district, which had leaped from 492nd to 216th place.

However, he made it clear that all obstacles regarding construction of personal toilets should be properly dealt with.

Official sources said even in first phase, out of 1 lakh toilets that were to be built by October first week, only 24,000 were built.