With the objective of ending the practice of open defecation in rural areas of the district by the end of 2016-17, the Shivamogga Zilla Panchayat has asked nationalised and cooperative banks to finance the construction of individual household toilets under the Swachh Bharat Mission.
The target for 2016-17 is 29,136 individual household toilets in the district. Of this, 23,283 have already been constructed. At present, the subsidy amount is given to the beneficiary after the toilet construction. A major chunk of the 5,853 households that don’t have toilets in the district fall in the low-income group. During a survey conducted by the ZP recently, it had emerged that owing to financial problems, many beneficiaries had postponed the work.
K. Rakesh Kumar, CEO of the ZP, told The Hindu that given this trend, he had written to the district lead bank to direct all nationalised and cooperative banks to provide personal loans to the families selected under the scheme. The ZP had also convened a meeting of officials and managers of major nationalised banks to discuss the issue. The banks can recover the amount after the government releases the subsidy to the beneficiary, Mr. Kumar said. The process of sanctioning loans for construction of toilets has already commenced in Thirthahalli taluk, he added.
At present, ₹12,000 is provided as subsidy to a household for the construction of toilets under the mission. For families belonging to SC/ST communities, the amount is ₹15,000.
The plan
According to a survey conducted in 2012, there were 81,441 families in the district that did not have toilets and were practising open defecation. According to the detailed project report of the ZP with the target of eradicating open defecation by 2016-17, the plan was to construct 12,473 individual household toilets in 2013-14, 30,211 in 2014-15, 20,117 in 2015-16, and 29,136 in 2016-17.
Of the 271 gram panchayats in the district, construction of toilets has been completed in 171 and they have all been declared free of open defecation.
