Mussoorie may get award for open defecation free town

MUSSOORIE: Mussoorie municipal council, one of the oldest in India, may soon be awarded for being an open defecation free town. The representatives of Swachh Bharat Mission inspected various areas and public toilets on Friday to confirm the claim by the authorities.
“The municipal council authorities had approached the state urban development directorate to claim the status.Representatives from the state mission have already done a reccee of the public toilets and things look positive at the moment. I am hopeful that the centre will think on the same lines,” said council president Manmohan Singh Mull.
The award is scheduled to be announced by the end of this month.
Under the Swacch Bharat Mission, India wants to be open defecation free by the year 2019.
However, some people do not support the claim by the corporation. The new sewage lines and sewage treatment plant, the pipelines for which have been laid and should have been ready by 2014, are yet to be operational. “If the waste is not going into the sewage lines, it is obviously that it is being dumped either on the north or the south side of the ridge,” said Dana Crider of KEEN.
Water resources minister Mantri Prasad Naithani had last year said that the Uttarakhand government would make the state free from open defecation practice before 2017.