Venkaiah Naidu launches Swachh Survekshan of 500 cities

The minister, during his meeting -- conducted via video conferencing -- with mayors, municipal chairpersons, municipal commissioners and other concerned officials of the 500 cities and towns to be surveyed said  that cities with a population of one lakh and above each, heritage and tourism cities, capital cities with less than one lakh population are included in this survey, the second since the launch of Swachh Bharat Mission.

Stressing on the need for behavioural change in favour of using toilets, Venkaiah Naidu launched ‘Asli Tarakki’ campaign highlighting the need for construction of toilets and using them wel, which will soon come on TV channels and in the print media with the message that having two-wheelers, air coolers, TV sets etc., is not ‘Asli Tarakki’ (real development) if such people did not have toilets and/or did not use them.

Naidu informed that since the first Swachh Survekshan Survey among 73 cities with population of million and above each in January this year, 115 cities have become ‘Open Defecation Free’ and another 793 cities and towns are set to become so by March next year.

Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala will become ODF by March, 2017.

The Minister stated that since the launch of Swachh Bharat Mission in October, 2014, construction of 21 lakh household individual toilets has been completed and construction of another 21 lakh toilets is in progress. The mission target in this regard is construction of 1.04 crore toilets by 2019.

Image: M. Venkaiah Naidu at the launch of the Swachh Survekshan-2017/PIB