The quarterly Karnataka Development Programme (KDP) meeting held here on Wednesday, witnessed an interesting discussion when the Deputy Director of Public Instruction S.S. Biradar informed the meeting that of around 16,000 teachers of the district, about 2,000 teachers do not have toilets in their home.
Surprised by this information, district in-charge Minister M. B. Patil wondered how teachers can ask their students to get a toilet constructed when they themselves don’t have one. “While we are talking of ‘Swach Bharat’ scheme which encourages construction of toilets, the teachers who have greater responsibility in making this campaign successful, do not have toilets,” he said. Mr. Biradar however informed that he has instructed all the teachers to have a toilet constructed, else a fine would be imposed on them.
Continuing the discussion on the Education Department, Mr. Patil warned of launching a drive to evaluate the teachers’ performance if department fails to increase its SSLC result position in the State.
About the construction toilets in the district, an official of ZP informed that in urban areas, people were not coming forward to get individual toilets constructed since the money offered by the government was limited compared to rural areas.
He said that while in rural areas people of general category get Rs. 12,000, and those from scheduled caste community get Rs. 15,000 for constructing toilets; in urban areas, the amount was fixed at Rs. 5,000 only.
Mr. Patil promised to speak to the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister to enhance the grant for urban areas.
