An initiative of Mangaluru City Corporation to make the city free of open defecation under the Swachh Bharat campaign has received a shot in the arm as the National Service Scheme (NSS) unit of Mangalore University has come forward to share its human resources to build individual toilets for the poor.
The authorities of the corporation and the NSS met two days ago to make the initiative a reality.
According to an official, the civic body will have to build 361 individual toilets for the poor. Those who have applied to the corporation are eligible to get Rs. 15,000 per toilet from the government, including from the Union and the State governments. The official added that though 408 people had submitted applications for building toilets, 47 were rejected as they already had toilets.
The corporation would have to build toilets for them before January next when a team from the Union government would visit the city between January 4, 2017 and February 4, 2017 for the Swachh Sarvekshana Survey, 2017.
At the meeting, the NSS agreed to share its human resources to construct maximum number of toilets under the campaign. The project will be a change for the volunteers from the annual routine “shramdan” programmes of cleaning, building playgrounds and roads.
The Task Force on Swachh Mangaluru, headed by the Mayor, would soon take a decision on whether the NSS volunteers would dig only the septic tank pits or build toilets also if provided with materials.
Vineeta Rai, co-ordinator, NSS of the university, told The Hindu, NSS officials from 126 colleges agreed to join hands to build the individual toilets both in the city and in other parts of the district.
Ms. Rai said the volunteers had already built some individual toilets in rural areas during annual camps in earlier years.
If the corporation supplies materials, the volunteers plan to build the toilets themselves as some of them have the expertise to do so. If not, septic tank pits could be dup up anyhow, she said. “Our volunteers already built a well at a government school in Belthangady in seven days,” she added.
The university has 16,000 NSS volunteers.
Ms. Rai said that the zilla panchayat has also asked the NSS if it could share its resources for building individual toilets in rural areas. “We are studying this proposal too,” she said.
