India News | Purulia in WB Only City Still Not Open-defecation Free, Says Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. Purulia in West Bengal is the only city in the country which has still not become open-defecation free, according to the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry.
New Delhi, Oct 27 (PTI) Purulia in West Bengal is the only city in the country which has still not become open-defecation free, according to the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry.
The ministry's secretary Durga Shanker Mishra said on Wednesday a letter has been written to the state government and they are trying their best in the matter.
According to the ministry, the Swachh Bharat Mission is moving on the path of sustainable sanitation with over 3,300 cities being certified ODF+ and over 950 cities ODF++.
Also, nine cities have been certified Water+, which entails treatment of wastewater and its optimum reuse.
"Purulia of West Bengal is the only city in the country which is still not open-defecation free (ODF)," Mishra said.
He also said the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry has set a target of clearing 60 square kilometres of area covered by garbage dumpsites in the next five years under the second phase of the Swachh Bharat Mission.
The issue of garbage mounds and waste processing had surfaced in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech on the launch of the Swachh Bharat Mission 2.0 earlier this month. He had said that the "mountain of garbage" in Delhi should be removed.
He said that dumpsites on 12 square kilometres of land have been cleared in the last seven years and during this process, there has been a lot of learning.
Addressing an event for the launch of guidelines for the second phase of SBM (Urban) and AMRUT Mission, Mishra said the capacity of clearing such sites has been enhanced with new technologies and skills.
Giving an example, the ministry secretary said there a landfill site in Indore has been cleared of garbage and a beautiful park has been developed there.
"In the next five years, dumpsites spreading 60 square kilometres will be cleared," Mishra told reporters.
Later, in a statement, the ministry said that the guidelines of SBM-U 2.0 and AMRUT 2.0 have been designed after multiple rounds of stakeholder consultations and feedback from them.
At the event, Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said that the second phases of SBM and Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) are set to transform the country into a "really swachh (clean)" country.
"The guidelines have been designed under the overarching guiding principles that include equity and inclusiveness to ensure that the mission's benefits reach all sections of society, focus on capacity building, extensive digital enablement for implementing every component of the Mission," the ministry stated.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)