TRICHY DISTRICT BECOME OPEN DEFECATION FREE DISTRICT IN TAMILNADU 11.2.2018

Union ministry declares Trichy as open defecation free district
Jan 11, 2018, 13:25 IST
TRICHY: The Union ministry of drinking water and sanitation has declared Trichy as an open defecation free ( ODF ) district for having ensured adequate infrastructure for people to refrain from defecating in public places.
District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) officials said sensitisation drives to make use of individual and public toilets had been carried out across the 14 blocks of the district through health, education and social welfare departments for over the past one year.
DRDA project officer G Malarvizhi said, "All the 404 village panchayats in the district have been studied since 2013-2014, from grass root level, to identify vulnerable open defecation spots. For households where the construction of individual toilet is not viable, we identified poromboke lands in villages to construct community toilets."
Official sources said close to 90,000 individual toilets had been built across the district through Swachh Bharat funds in the past one year. Stating that adequate infrastructure for public is provided has been avoid open defecation, DRDA officials said that more awareness initiatives and sensitisation drives would be carried out in the coming days to ensure open defecation is not practiced in the district.
"We have even planned to identify the best school and best Self Help Group in the district which pursue the best sanitation practices for creating awareness in rural hamlets," the DRDA official added.
As many as 16 districts in Tamil Nadu, including Trichy, have been declared as ODF by Union government so far. Another 16 districts are awaiting the recognition to make Tamil Nadu an open defecation free state.