No toilet at home? Don’t contest panchayat polls

Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh has written to all chief ministers, urging them to make toilet in homes a mandatory condition for contesting panchayat polls. The aim: Elected representatives should lead by example, and create awareness on sanitation issues. Singh said, ‘‘30 lakh panchayat representatives are elected. So at least 1.5 crore people who will contest will have to build toilets. The aim is creating awareness.’’

‘‘It’s not a matter of affording it, but of habit,’’ he has written, explaining why many did not build toilets in their houses. Citing an example, he said 70 per cent of the population in Haryana had TV in their houses but only 40 per cent had toilets.

It was unfortunate that many panchayat members and village representatives did not have toilets in their homes, he has written, urging the states to persuade them to get toilets constructed.

Two states, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh already have the clause in place. West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh (where panchayat elections took place recently), Gujarat and Orissa were considering amending the legislation.

Maharashtra and Bihar have decided to go ahead with the clause, said Singh.

For any Below Poverty Line person wanting to fight the elections, the ministry is thinking of financial aid. ‘‘For those under the poverty line, we are going to increase the assistance that we give. We have asked the Agriculture Finance Corporation to increase our share and we will provide around Rs 1,100 to 1,200 to each such family,’’ said Singh.

‘‘A marginal amount will have to be put in by the BPL family. Singh has asked state governments to threaten government employees, including anganwadi workers, with wage or pension cuts if they don’t build toilets in their homes. Even PDS shopowners, who make up 4 lakh households, are on the hit list.

In Chhattisgarh, after the December 2004 panchayat elections, panchayat representatives have been given a year to get toilets built. Otherwise, they face disqualification. ‘‘…we have sent notices to every district to find out how many of them have built toilets in their houses. They still have some time,’’ said Chhattisgarh Panchayati Raj Minister Ajay Chandrakar.

Singh has also told the states to encourage government employees to build toilets in their houses and influence others too so that India is able to meet the Millennium Development Goal of eradicating the practice of defecation in the open by 2010.

Rural sanitation coverage in the country is only 33 per cent with over 65 per cent rural population having no access to toilet facilities.

200,000 million tonnes of excreta enters water sources and is the main cause of diarrhoea that kills 400,000 children annually.

The toilet campaign is part of the Total Sanitation Campaign, launched by the Ministry of Rural Development, that has so far covered 522 districts.

The scheme includes school sanitation, community sanitation and individual household sanitation. The Centre puts in 60 per cent of the funds, the state 20 per cent and the community or individual the remaining. Last year, the ministry spent 400 crore on toilets, this year 700 crore and next year the target is Rs 1,000 crore.