Social auditing of home toilets in the jurisdiction of gram panchayats in Dakshina Kannada began on Wednesday as the district has been declared open defecation-free under Swachh Bharat Mission last year.
A social auditing wing under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme of the Union government would conduct the audit till September 2.
As part of the audit, a team of 75 members would visit the homes in 230 gram panchayats in the district to cross check whether all homes have toilets. According to the zilla panchayat, 2.68 lakh homes in rural areas have toilets. Those homes are not unauthorised constructions. Hence, the number of toilets have been counted by taking into account only authorised homes.
Meanwhile, in view of the panchayat observing the current financial year as the Year of Sanitation, M.R. Ravi, Chief Executive Officer of Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat, has written to the zilla panchayat members requesting them to set an example by constructing bio-gas units in their houses to reduce wet waste dumping on the countryside. He said that the panchayat would provide technical guidance for building the units.
He said that the district was declared open defecation-free in October 2016. The panchayat has also formulated a sanitation policy.
He said that the panchayat has set up a bio-gas unit in the official residence of the chief executive officer in Mangaluru. It was producing cooking gas and manure for plants. Hence, recycling of waste should be given importance.
N.R. Umesh, Deputy Secretary of the panchayat, said that it was working on the disposal of plastic collected in rural areas. An entrepreneur from Chikkamagaluru has shown interest to collect plastic from gram panchayats and set up a crushing unit. Once it materialised, people can hand over plastic at a designated centre in each gram panchayat limits. The authorised agency from the panchayat would lift them for safe disposal.
