SEHORE: Thanks to the initiative of the district administration and the awareness of the masses, Sehore may soon be declared Open Defecation Free (ODF). The official announcement may be made at a programme to be held with chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan as chief guest in May. The CM may dedicate some projects to the people on the occasion.
Sehore will become the seventh ODF district in the state. Presently, Indore, Ujjain, Harda, Narsinghpur and Neemuch districts have been declared ODF. Sehore town and Budhni block have already been declared ODF.
With most of the villagers used to defecating in the open, it was not easy for the administration to persuade them to use toilets. Collector Sudama Khade and district panchayat CEP Kedar Singh had taken up concerted efforts in this direction. People were told about the ill-effects of open defecation and the pollution it caused.
The campaign for construction of toilets in the district began in October 2014 under Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan. The target was to make 497 panchayats ODF by 2016 but only 184 panchayats could attain that status. After taking over, Kedar Singh adopted some innovative methods and within six months 313 panchayats were declared ODF.
On March 1, 2017, the district panchayat handed over a report to Swachh Bharat Mission claiming that 1.11 lakh toilets were built in 497 panchayats of the five blocks of the district.
