Changes under swachh bharat mission brings hopes for Municipal Corporation Ludhiana to curb open defecation

Ludhiana, July 19, 2016: With certain changes in guidelines of Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) the Municipal Corporation Ludhiana is looking forward to provide more facilities to the public and to curb the open defecation for bringing better results in terms of maintaining hygiene and cleanliness. The officials claimed that they would now be able to execute the project more efficiently.

The centre government has given the state High Powered Committees (SHPCs) the flexibility to re-determine targets for Individual household latrines (IHHLs) and Community toilets (CTs). Also the grant given for CTs has been increased to Rs 39,200 per seat. This marks a shift from monitoring of toilet construction to monitoring of Open defecation free (ODF) status achievement. They have also given extension of grant of up to 40% as available for CTs to Public Toilet projects.

The GOI has included the urinals in ODF component by allocating grant worth Rs 12,800 per unit. They have also increased the central assistance for Municipal Solid Waste Management component from present 20 percent to 35 percent. Now with these changes the officials hoped to get more financial assistance from centre government and they would be able to do more for Swachh bharat mission.

However the MCL has also launched an app “Swachh Map” and through this app people will be able to click photos of dirty spots and this app will automatically send the photo and location to concerned sanitary inspector. He will get it cleaned, and post an 'after' photo on the app which would be visible to the complainant as well. In this regard the MCL is conducting a training program so that the concerned officials should learn the working of the app.

Meanwhile the additional commissioner MC Surabhi Malik said that increase in allocations of funds will definitely help in actual execution of these projects and they would be able to provide more services to the general public. Regarding launching of app she said that Swachh Map app is already available on Google playstore and Apple and once people would complain on this app the concerned sanitary inspector will have to solve that problem.

Further the MCL Commissioner Ghanshyam Thori said that certain changes were required in guidelines to prepare the projects and then get them implemented. He also stressed upon the proper monitoring of the rectification of the complaints registered on this app.