Union Minister of State for Drinking Water and Sanitation Ramesh Jigajinagi has said five States in the country and five districts in Karnataka have been declared open defecation-free by the Union government.
Addressing presspersons here on Thursday, Mr. Jigajinagi said that while Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Gujarat, and Kerala are the States that have been declared open defecation-free, the five districts in Karnataka are Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru Rural, Udupi, Kodagu, and Dakshina Kannada. “The five worst performing States are Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha, Telangana, and Uttar Pradesh,” he said. With regard to allocation of funds from the Centre to the State for drinking water, Mr. Jigajinagi said that the government has granted ₹336 crore for 2016-17 and has earmarked ₹290 crore for 2017-18. About the drinking water project launched in Indi taluk, he said the ₹105-crore project was almost complete and would be inaugurated within the next two months. The project aims to supply drinking water to 72 villages in Indi taluk.
‘Congress never helped Dalits’
Mr. Jigajinagi alleged that when B.R. Ambedkar died, the then Congress government did not even offer a small space in Delhi to bury him. He said that the Congress never helped Dalits. Mr. Jigajinagi, however, did not have an answer to who had sought the land for the burial and who rejected the offer. “It is the Congress government which refused to offer the land ... that is the history of the Congress government,” is all he said. He said that the BJP government has been holding events across the country to celebrate the 125th birth anniversary of Dr. Ambedkar.
