Minister of Urban Development M.Venkaiah Naidu has called for ‘making use of toilets as a life style choice by all and particularly, the poor as part of achieving total sanitation in the country’. Addressing the inaugural session of ‘World Toilet Congress’ here today, Shri Naidu elaborated on a three pronged strategy of promoting awareness about the need for cleanliness, ensuring necessary infrastructure and resorting to penal measures to ensure total sanitation in the country. Reflecting on the sanitation scenario in the country, Shri Venkaiah Naidu noted that none of the 7,135 cities and towns qualifies to be a ‘green city’ in terms of sanitation in the country and only four cities viz., Chandigarh, New Delhi Municipal Council, Surat and Mysore scored 66 as against 90 required for being a green city, when the last ranking was done in 2010. He informed that fresh ranking of cities based on sanitation conditions would be completed by March this year. The Minister lamented that about US $ 54 billion worth GDP is being lost every every year on account of inadequate sanitation in the country. In urban areas over one crore toilets are required to be built in urban areas alone and the Government would be spending over Rs.2 lakh cr in both urban and rural areas in the country over the next five years to ensure cleanliness. He further noted that about 13% of urban people defecate in the open. Shri Venkaiah Naidu felt that after generating awareness about cleanliness and providing infrastructure like inpidual and community and public toilets, penal measures should be introduced for violating sanitation norms. The two day World Toilet Summit is being organized by the World Toilet Organistion and World Education Foundation under the aegis of the Ministry of Urban Development.