Work on school toilets at peak as government closes in on its target

NEW DELHI: Two days to go before the deadline set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi expires on August 15, things have reached a feverish pitch right from the PMO down to districts and blocks as they struggle to ensure every government school has the promised toilet in place before the PM holds forth at the Red Fort for his second Independence Day speech.

Over 7,000 toilets— 1.6 per cent of the total target- — were still to be completed on the evening of 13th August and 98.32 per cent toilets were completed two days before the Independence Day.

Officials confirmed that senior officials from both the Cabinet Secretariat and the Prime Minister’s Office were keeping a hawk’s eye watch on the Swachh Vidyalaya mission, seeking hourly reports on construction status as countdown to I Day began.

Of the 7,030 toilets left to be readied, the maximum pendency is in Orissa which had over 6600 still to be completed as on 13th August. Bihar and Chhattisgarh struggled with more than 250 and 90 incomplete ones respectively. As on date, 6,769 toilets were yet to be completed by PSUs and 253 by the private sector. Coal India Limited, as per the government data, had the maximum pendency among PSUs while among corporates Infosys is a clear laggard as per government data- completing just five of the 252 toilets it was approved to complete.

Toilets to be constructed through government funds had the best record with just eight of them left to go.

While the original deadline for constructing separate and functional toilets for boys and girls across government schools was 15th July, it was later extended to 30th July.