LUDHIANA DISTRICT WOULD BECOME 100% OPEN DEFECATION FREE BY OCTOBER 31: RAVI BHAGAT

Ludhiana, October 2, 2016: For making the Swachh Bharat Mission successful in the real terms, providing toilets to every household and for encouraging people to use clean toilets, the District Administration Ludhiana had started “Selfie with my Shauchalya” contest. With an aim to encourage people to use clean toilets, this contest was started on September 17 where the beneficiaries of toilets provided by Punjab government and Bharti Foundation were urged to click a selfie with their toilet. Three winners of "Selfie with my Shauchalya" contest were honoured by the district administration during a special function held at Bachat Bhawan, here today.
Ever since this contest started, a total of 521 people submitted their selfie's and out of them, three winners were chosen. The three people honoured today include Baljit Singh, a resident of village Akalgarh Kalan in Sudhar block, Rani, a resident of village Lohgarh in Pakhowal block and Karamjeet Singh, a resident of village Faizgarh in Khanna block.
While providing information, Deputy Commissioner Mr Ravi Bhagat said that this contest was started for encouraging the masses about the use of clean toilets having all facilities. He said that every household is being provided free toilets to people by the Water Supply & Sanitation Department of the Punjab government and the Bharti Foundation. He said some families are spending money on their toilets from their own pocket and adding facilities such as wash basin etc, which is appreciable. He said this contest was started with an aim to encourage such beneficiaries.
These beneficiaries were to click a selfie and send it to email address [email protected] or through Whatsapp to phone number 9876626206 or give to the motivators working in their respective rural areas of the district by September 30, 2016. The motivators, who are educating the masses in this direction, were also be honoured. They include Harmeek Singh of block Sidhwan Bet, Manjinder Kaur of Samrala block, Arvinder Singh of Pakhowal block, Hardeep Singh of Samrala block and Sukhman Kaur of Doraha block.
Additional Deputy Commissioner (Development) Miss Apneet Riyait and Water Supply & Sanitation Department Executive Engineer (XEN) Mr Jaswinder Singh Chahal informed that along with the construction of toilets, the motivators of the department are also educating the people about the use of toilets. They said that the Panchayats of villages Tugal, Jassowal, Aitiana and Raqba were also honoured.
Mr Mohd Ishfaq, Director, Water Supply & Sanitation Department, Punjab, said that after the success of this "Selfie with my Shauchalya" contest, the Punjab government has decided to start it throughout the state and is showing good results. He also congratulated Deputy Commissioner Mr Ravi Bhagat, ADC (D) Miss Apneet Riyait and their entire team for starting this contest and achieving positive results towards making the district 100% Open Defecation Free.
Mr Ravi Bhagat informed that the District Administration has set itself a target of October 31, 2016 for making Ludhiana district “Open Defecation Free” and all rural households of the district would have toilet facility by then. In district Ludhiana, a total of 26,107 toilets are to be constructed, out of which more than 21,000 have already been constructed. The Water Supply & Sanitation Department of Punjab government is constructing 8,000 toilets while the Bharti Foundation is constructing 18,000 toilets. The work on constructing remaining 4631 toilets in 389 villages of the district started from September 29.
During the function, floral tributes were also paid to father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri.