Sangli to get 500 toilets

Last year, Habitat for Humanity, an NGO, built 500 sanitation units in Sangli. This year, they plan to add another 500 toilets to the district. A baseline survey done by the NGO revealed that nearly 80% of the rural population of Sangli and Kohlapur lacks proper sanitation facilities due to insufficient funds and low awareness among people.

"It's part of our Swachh Bharat campaign to which we have clubbed the motto of 'sensitize to sanitize'. We realised that merely building toilets was not enough, because there were instances of villagers using the toilets as storerooms for fodder and other such stuff. Thus, we decided to create awareness about the need for private toilets."

The campaign was launched last year and aims to build 1 lakh toilets by October 2, 2015.

Shaur Mulla, a housewife living in Bhose in the Tal-Miraj district of Sangli, has an adolescent daughter. They had to wait for nightfall before they could go out to relieve themselves and would need someone to accompany them.
'Life was a nightmare without toilets. I have a young daughter and I feel very insecure every time my daughter ventured out to relieve herself. With a toilet at home, I feel life has a new beginning. Me and my daughter, both feel much safer," says Shaur Mehboob Mulla, one of the beneficiaries of Habitat's campaign.

Habitat for Humanity also does relief work in disaster stricken-areas like Uttarakhand and is currently gathering funds to help the Jammu and Kashmir flood victims.