The declaration of the State as Open Defecation Free (ODF) in May 2017 was incorrect. This was among the conclusions stated in the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India tabled in the Vidhan Sabha on Thursday.
According to the CAG report for the year ended March 31, 2017, the planning and implementation of Swachchh Bharat Mission (Gramin) by the State was found to be inadequate. Against the target of 546 community sanitary complexes and 4,485 solid and liquid waste management structures, only 63 and 50 respectively were constructed up to March 2017. Citing this, the CAG report states that declaration of the state as ODF in May 2017 was incorrect. It, further, states that failure to update beneficiary data on the Government of India portal resulted in non-inclusion of more than one lakh beneficiaries. The financial management was also found to be inadequate as the State did not release its share of Rs 10.58 crore during the year 2016-17.
During physical verification of 40 village Panchayats, it was observed that 253 out of 400 (63.25 per cent) of individual household laterines were without water facilities. Further, in the physically verified 40 village Panchayats, information obtained from the Gram Pradhans revealed that 1,694 households (4.12 per cent) out of the 41,150 households residing in the villages were without toilets and were not covered under the mission. This indicates that the ODF status had not been fully achieved.
The report goes on to state that Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation has defined that ODF status can be achieved only when there are no visible faeces found in the environment/village and every household as well as public/community institution use safe technology option for disposal of faeces. The Government of Uttarakhand declared the State as ODF on May 31, 2017.
However, considering the fact that 1,79,868 households were not included in the target of construction of individual household laterines and that there were significant shortfalls in construction of community sanitary complexes along with solid and liquid waste management, the declaration of status of ODF in the State was therefore incorrect.
