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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Tussle between two ministries hits toilet plans for government schools -Neetu Chandra Sharma

Tussle between two ministries hits toilet plans for government schools -Neetu Chandra Sharma

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published Published on Aug 19, 2014   modified Modified on Aug 19, 2014
-India Today

At a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is spearheading a drive to build separate toilets for boys and girls in schools across the country within a year, the issue has been hit by a tussle between the Drinking Water and Sanitation Ministry and the Human Resource Development Ministry over who will fund the construction in state-run schools.

Modi's dream project "Swachh Bharat", which aims to make India free of open defecation and open drains in the next five years, is being executed by the Drinking Water and Sanitation Ministry, which has said it may fall short of funds.

Sources in the Drinking Water and Sanitation Ministry said the Human Resource Development Ministry was asked to use its own funds to build toilets in schools run under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). The Sanitation Ministry wrote to the department of education under the Human Resource Development Ministry on this issue.

"Post-2007, the toilets are funded under the SSA programme with separate toilets for boys and girls and with water connection. Also, for schools built prior to 2007, toilets are being funded by our ministry. The ministry has to achieve Swachh Bharat by 2019," Pankaj Jain, Secretary in the Drinking Water and Sanitation Ministry, wrote in the letter to R Bhattacharya, Secretary of the Department of School Education and Literacy under the HRD Ministry.

"We have been asked to converge all the resources available in various ministries for this purpose, as the funds in the ministry may fall short for achieving the goal by 2019," Jain wrote in the letter accessed by Mail Today. "It is required that your ministry may take up the construction of girls' and boys' toilets in schools along with water connection out of your ministry's funds so that we may achieve Swachh Bharat by 2019," Jain wrote.

During his Independence Day speech, Modi outlined his vision of all schools having separate toilets for boys and girls within a year. "Only then our daughters will not be compelled to leave schools midway," he said. Besides using funds provided to MPs to develop their constituencies, Modi appealed to the corporate sector to build toilets in schools under Corporate Social Responsibility.

Responding to Modi's call, TCS, the county's largest software exporter, on Monday announced a donation of Rs.100 crore for sanitation facilities for girls in 10,000 schools. The company said this investment will help girls participate in education for a longer period of time and play a larger economic role.

In a similar initiative, Bharti Foundation said it would invest Rs.100 crore to build toilets in Ludhiana over the next three years to improve household sanitation in rural Punjab. It will also invest in building toilets for girls in government schools. "It is our commitment that no single household or school in rural Ludhiana will be without a toilet by the end of this tenure," Bharti Foundation chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said.

Modi has set a "clean country"deadline to coincide with Mahatma Gandhi's 150th birth anniversary. Swachh Bharat is a mass mission aimed at building around 800 million toilets and creating modern sewage systems by 2019.

 


India Today, 19 August, 2014, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/narendra-modi-school-toilet-scheme-hrd-ministry-bureaucratic-tussle/1/377695.html


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