Kalaburagi to be open defecation free in three months, says Mayor

Expressing his commitment to actively participate in Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Kalaburagi Mayor Syed Ahmed said the City Corporation would make all efforts to put an end to open defecation in the city by March end. Addressing a media conference here on Friday, Mr. Ahmed said the civic body was seriously working on it.

“Out of 55 wards, 13 have already been declared open defecation free. We hope that the remaining wards will also join the club by the end of this March. To accelerate the process, we are taking up special drives for constructing both individual and community toilets across the city,” he said.

Quick and hassle-free sanction of amount to individual beneficiaries for constructing toilets at their houses, speeding up the repairs of old community toilets and building new ones in densely populated and crowded locations will be taken up on priority basis, he added.

To a question, R.P. Jadhav, Executive Engineer, said that about 11,300 of 54,000 residential structures in the city did not have individual toilets. “Of the households which don’t have individual toilets, around 9500 resort to open defecation while around 1800 households use community toilets. There are 51 public toilets spread across the city and 15 among them are under repair. Six new toilets are under construction,” he said.

Expressing Corporation’s desire to upgrade city’s sanitation system, Mr. Jadhav said that six E-toilets with self-cleaning mechanism have been planned for different locations at the cost of Rs. 5.5 lakh each.

More allocation

Mr. Ahmed said that the budgetary allocations for maintaining sanitation – sweeping, garbage collection, drainage maintenance etc – has been increased from Rs. 14 crore to Rs. 20 crore. “Increased budgetary allocations would enable us to employ more labourers for keeping the city clean. For green-drive, we have received Rs. 2 crore funds from the government which will be spent on enhancing city’s green cover,” he said.

Marathon

Mr. Ahmed said a marathon-run would be organised on Sunday for spreading awareness among public and encouraging them to join hands with the civic body in its effort to turn Kalaburagi clean and green. The marathon will start from Jagat Circle and end at Town Hall via SVP Circle. He appealed to general public to participate in the run.

“The three participants who will complete the race first will get cash prizes of Rs. 5000, Rs. 3000 and Rs. 2000 respectively,” he said. There will also be cash prizes of Rs. 10,000, Rs. 7,500 and Rs. 5,000 for collecting plastic waste from city’s premises, he added.