North Corporation works towards securing ODF tag

Inspections are due later this week

The North Delhi Municipal Corporation has been making intensive preparations in order to secure an ‘Open Defecation Free’ certification, with inspections due later this week.

ODF certification is granted to municipal corporations after inspections by agencies such as the Quality Council of India (QCI).

This plays an important role in the Swatchatta ranking of the municipal corporations. In the 2019 Swatchatta rankings, the North Corporation was marked as ‘self-declared ODF’.

Commissioner Varsha Joshi, addressing the Standing Committee on Wednesday, said that the corporation did not get the certification earlier because there was a lack of toilets and insufficient monitoring, especially in jhuggi clusters and areas occupied by migrants.

Built toilets

To tackle this, the North Corporation constructed up to 500 toilets in the last two to three months. She also claimed that all toilets in the area were now in a working condition.

A big challenge in trying to secure ODF is the presence of several big railway stations in the civic body’s jurisdiction she added.

In this regard, the North body has tied up with the railway authorities in maintaining multiple mobile toilets set up near railway tracks.

The Railway Police Force is also conducting checks apart from sanitation staff of the civic body which is said to be undertaking regular morning checks at vulnerable spots.