The state of Punjab is all set to achieve the target fixed under Swachh Bharat Mission up till October 2017 which is two years prior to the scheduled date. Water Supply & Sanitation department has been working day and night to achieve the target before hand, the department has fixed target to make all the village of the Punjab ‘Open Defecation Free’ (ODF) till October 2017 by constructing 7.91 lakh individual household latrines. The government would incur Rs. 12,00 crore on this massive exercise.Disclosing this Mr. Surjit Singh Rakhra, Water Supply and Sanitation Department in press communiqué released here today said that the government till date has constructed 1 lakh 15 thousand individual household latrines with the cost of Rs. 250 crore. He said that the construction of 1 lakh more such latrines is underway and the work would be completed within one month.
The Minister expressed deep satisfaction over the fact that though the Union Government has fixed the deadline for completing this work under Swachh Bharat Mission up till October 2, 2019 but the state government has resolved to complete this task minimum two year before the deadline.Divulging the statistics of ODF villages in Punjab Mr. Rakhra said that at present 1051 villages are Open Defecation Free while 413 more villages would achieve this ODF status by March 2017. He said that for one individual household latrines Rs. 15,000 are being disbursed to each household.Mr. A.K. Sinha, Secretary of the department that the Chief Minister and Water Supply and Sanitation Minister is taking personal interest in the completion of this flagship project which enthused the workers to expedite the assigned duty. He said that the department has also hired 1000 volunteers to sensitize the villagers to be part of this Swachh Bharat Mission campaign. He said that each volunteer cover 3 to 4 villages every day.