‘No child in India dies of diarrhoea due to open defecation’: Jal Shakti Minister C R Patil lauds success of Swachh Bharat Mission

He said the government allocated over Rs 32,000 crore for cleanliness programmes in the first five years, which showed its resolve for this programme. Patil stated that 60 crore people have stopped going out to defecate due to the use of toilets.

In the second phase of the Swachh Bharat Mission, the government launched the open defecation-free (ODF)-plus initiative, and over 3.5 lakh villages declared themselves ODF-plus, he said.

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked about toilets from the Red Fort in his Independence Day speech, many in the opposition raised questions about this, Patil said.

Regarding the event on October 2, Patil said PM Modi will participate in a cleanliness program in the national capital and then address an event.

In July 2018, a WHO report found that the Centre’s Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin will avert 3,00,000 deaths (diarrhoea and protein-energy malnutrition) between 2014 and October 2019.

“Unsafe sanitation caused an estimated 199 million cases of diarrhoea annually before the start of the SBM in 2014. These have been gradually reducing, and will almost be eliminated when universal use of safe sanitation facilities is achieved by October 2019,” it said.