New Delhi: Under the dream vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan", govt has gained momentum with 7.1 lakh toilets constructed in January 2015, the highest for any month since the project was launched in October, government data showed.
But, with less than two months left for the fiscal year to close, the government is likely to miss this year's target of constructing 1.2 crore toilets.
According to data, a total of 31.83 lakh toilets have been built between April 2014 and January 2015, which is 25.4% of the target for 2014-15. The programme entails an investment of nearly Rs 2 lakh crore over the next five years to construct 12 crore toilets in India.
Speaking to Economic Times, a govt official said that the internal target for the year is 50 lakh and the ministry of drinking water and sanitation is on course to achieve it.
In the 12th Five-Year Plan, an outlay of Rs 37,159 crore was set aside for rural sanitation under the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, launched by the previous UPA government. Of this, only Rs 4,724 crore was utilised in the first two years of the plan, leaving the Modi government with Rs 32,435 crore of corpus to spend on the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, which seeks to make India 'open defecation free' by 2019.
To give a boost to the programme, the government has brought it in convergence with the rural housing scheme, Indira Awaas Yojana, and sought financial and technical support from the World Bank, besides asking corporates to undertake the project as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative.
