After rural Panchkula MC aims at open defecation-free tag for urban areas

Additional deputy commissioner Hema Sharma said: “Open defecation is not only limited to rural areas. The problem is there in urban areas too. Panchkula has a number of residential colonies on encroached land, consisting of hutments. The survey revealed that there are not enough toilets in these areas, including Indira Colony, Rajiv Colony and Old Panchkula.”

The campaign would be carried out in close tie-ups with the state government, which has also announced to make all the 21 districts of Haryana open defecation- free by December 2017. The announcement was made on the occasion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday on September 17, when Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar declared rural Panchkula and Sirsa the first two districts to be open defecation- free.

Deputy commissioner Dr Garima Mittal said: “The initial challenge was to make all the rural areas open defecation-free by urging people to build toilets in their houses. With the completion of the first phase, we now aim to achieve complete results by including the urban areas as well.”

The urban areas will also include more than 50 villages, which are within the limits of the municipal corporation, and 20 wards of the civic body. A meeting will soon be held with the councillors on how the campaign will be carried out in the wards.