Uttarakhand village builds 8031 individual household latrines in 20 days

When residents of Udham Singh Nagar district in the northern hill state of Uttarakhand heard about the Swachh Bharat Mission, the cleanliness drive that would bring about total sanitation and keep them in good health, they were keen to submit applications as early as possible.

To have a toilet of their own, for the private use of one family, was something they hadn’t thought was possible. It was a dream-come-true.

The village authorities launched Mission Swabhiman under the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) in November 2015 with the intention of making the district open defecation free (ODF) by 2017.

To that end, it was decided to construct 8000 toilets in all village panchayats of the district with the involvement of the local community and public representatives, particularly those from Panchayat Raj institutions.

The community awareness meeting held during the launch paid off, people were eager to own a facility to relieve themselves.

It helped that the district cooperative bank was willing to provide loans of Rs 10,000 to the most deprived households.

The plan was to make the entire district which consists of seven Tehsils namely Bajpur, Gadarpur, Jaspur, Kashipur, Kichha, Khatima ODF by 2017. The process commenced and within a matter of 20 days they were able to construct 8031 individual household latrines, making 75 gram panchayats open defecation free.

During the current financial year, plans are in the pipeline to construct an additional 40,000 individual household latrines and an action plan is in place.