After a lot of work and word spreading, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has announced that the city of Hyderabad has finally become Open Defecation Free (ODF). The initial announcement was that 150 wards of the city were ODF, on which the commissioner asked for suggestions and opinions before August 28. Under the Swachh Survekshan Mission initiative of the central government, GHMC undertook the construction of individual and public toilets in the necessary places. Under this, a total of 1975 private toilets were constructed apart from the 384 public and community toilets. Space and location were taken into consideratio, and community toilets as well as pre fabricated toilets were built wherever necessary.
Of the 384 public/community toilets, 135 were built in Build-Operate-Transfer mode, 109 were pre-fabricated, 46 were by Sulabh, 17 were She e-Toilets, and 20 were community toilets. Twenty five she e- toilets too are under progress. Besides them, GHMC is working on about 295 fuel stations and 390 hotel and restaurants to open their premises for the use by general public.
Several awareness programs and campaigns were conducted for making people aware in order to stop open defecation. There were also few cases reported in which people are not using the available toilets. In such areas they were made aware of the problems that we have to face due to open defecation. Some places people are even fined and garlanded.
It is a great measure by GHMC making the city open defecation free. Let’s all hope for many progressive changes like this, thereby creating a better and cleaner city for a better tomorrow!
