Five more States viz., Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Haryana have reached the milestone of making all cities and towns ‘Open Defecation Free’ as the Swacch Bharat Mission completed three years today. This was announced by the Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri while speaking at a programme here today on the occasion of the third anniversary of the mission. Giving an account of the progress towards Swacchata in urban areas of the country, Shri Puri informed that as against the target of building about 66 lakh individual household toilets in urban areas, 38 lakh toilets have already been built and construction of another 14 lakh toilets is in progress. Over two lakh community and public toilet seats have been built as against the mission target of five lakh toilet seats.
Stating that focus in now being laid on Solid Waste Management, Shri Puri said that efforts are on to generate over 500 MW of electricity and over 50 lakh tons of compost from municipal solid waste to enable processing of the entire solid waste being generated in urban areas. Shri Puri said that sanitation is a birth right and individual responsibility as well. He informed that the fortnight long ‘Swacchata Hi Sewa’ campaign concluding today has witnessed participation of over 80 lakh people spread over 3.50 lakh activities in urban areas. The Minister stressed on the need for ‘life style change’ to realise the objective of Swacch Bharat as envisioned by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi.