A committee under NITI Ayog had suggested us to allot 25% of funds under the Abhiyan on campaigning to bring behavioural change among people, that they use toilets."
In order to bring in behavioural change towards use of toilets, the Centre on Wednesday announced allotment of 25% of funds under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan to campaigning in rural areas.
"A committee under NITI Ayog had suggested us to allot 25% of funds under the Abhiyan on campaigning to bring behavioural change among people, that they use toilets."
"In line with the same, we have decided to increase funds allotted to you (states) from 8% to 10% in time to come," Union Rural Development, Drinking Water and Sanitation Minister Birender Singh said.
Addressing state ministers during 'National Review of Rural Sanitation and Drinking Water' conference here, Singh urged regional governments to figure out the kind of technologies that can be used to ensure proper sanitation in areas facing water shortage.
He underscored the need for increasing withdrawal of water from surface rather than underground to avoid health issues caused by arsenic and chemic elements.
"Come forward with at least one mega water grid project in line with Centre's policy aimed at reducing dependency on groundwater," he said assuring "full co-operation" from his Ministry.
The policy intends to make it mandatory for all states (barring hilly ones) to take up at least one surface water-based piped water supply scheme under National Rural Drinking Water programme.
The Minister appealed to states for making collective efforts to attain the target of an open defecation-free (ODF) India by 2019 and providing water to all village households by 2022.
"Sikkim and Kerala are almost ODF. Over 40,000 villages in the country have declared themselves as ODF. Some districts have also achieved the feat. I hope that you will soon have such many more districts," he said and pitched for adopting effective solid waste management practices.
Union Ministers of State Ram Kripal Yadav and Nihal Chand also addressed the conference.
Drinking water and sanitation ministers and officials from 12 states including Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Nagaland participated in the conference.
In his speech, Minister of State for Rural Development Ram Kripal Yadav said around 49% households in the country have toilets and as many per cent of population has been covered with piped drinking water supply system.
Yadav said Kerala led the piped water supply in the country covering over 99% of its rural population, while Tamil Nadu and Gujarat followed with 98.96% and 89.33% network respectively.
He rued that Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand lagged far behind at 5.5%, 9% and slightly above 10% respectively.
Yadav expressed concern over women safety issues in areas where they had to defecate in open and called for efforts to cover such pockets under the cleanliness mission.
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