More than half of the Swachh Bharat beneficiaries who received the initial amount from the Kalaburagi Mahanagara Palike have not yet begun the construction of toilets at their houses.
The palike received 6,730 applications seeking financial assistance for building toilets in their houses under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
The civic body scrutinised and found that only 2,357 applications were eligible.
Among the applications included those who already had toilets in their houses and those without proper documents and bank account details.
The civic body paid ₹2,000 to each of the beneficiaries to begin building toilets.
But the civic body, to its surprise, found that 1,295 beneficiaries never started the construction work.
Only 1,062 people finished the construction and received the remaining ₹13,000.
Since the ₹5,300 fixed by the Union government, for each individual toilet was reportedly insufficient, the civic body allocated ₹5.6 crore to pay an additional ₹7,700 to make it ₹15,000 for each unit.
Speaking to The Hindu on Thursday, palike commissioner P. Sunilkumar said that notice had been served to those who failed to construct the toilets and used the funds for other purposes.
In some localities, even individual toilets at houses are being used as storage rooms.
Girijabai and Ansuya, residents of Rajiv Gandhi Nagar, said that they are not keen on having a toilet at home owing to the scarcity of water.
Fakruddin, a resident of Dubai Colony, admitted that money was the problem in building toilets.
“It is true that the government reimburses the amount. But, we don’t have money to spend to build the toilet first,” he said.
The palike is taking multiple initiatives, like promoting construction of individual toilets, building community toilets and making its solid waste management more effective, to improve its performance in the Swachh Survekshan.
Presently, it is in the 294th position among the 434 cities surveyed.
“Open defection is one of the major parameters in the Swachh Survekshan and we are focusing on it. We have set a target of building 5,500 new individual toilets by 2018,” Mr. Sunilkumar said, adding that the civic body’s efforts to climb Swachh Survekshan ladder needs to be supported by its citizens.
