Except for two states in the country, all the remaining ones are going to fall way short of the target of 100 per cent coverage of all rural schools and anganwadis in their regions with toilets by 2011. The target was set for them under the Centre’s Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC).
A whopping 13,14,636 toilets are to be provided in schools and anganwadis across the country under the TSC. With 2011 end not too far away, data available with the Union ministry of rural development indicates that only Mizoram and Sikkim in the northeast have achieved cent per cent success so far under TSC.
The data available with the ministry reveals that states like Meghalaya (32.99 per cent), Jharkhand (46.14 per cent), Andhra Pradesh (38.76 per cent), West Bengal (24.76 per cent), Punjab (31.67 per cent) and Bihar (16.71 per cent) have not even been able to achieve even 50 per cent of the target under TSC.
This despite the fact that TSC was launched over a decade ago in 1999 after it replaced the then Central Rural Sanitation Programme (CRSP). Yet, even the recasting of the CRSP, which had been launched in 1986, into the newer TSC has not yielded the desired results. “The results again are far from satisfactory,” said sources.
The ground situation can be gauged from the fact that not only is the physical infrastructure for sanitation facilities in the as yet uncovered rural schools is lacking but even measures like imparting education related to all aspects of hygiene, including personal hygiene, seem to have been taken in a half-hearted manner by the gram panchayats. The Centre has been asking the states to train at least one teacher in each school in hygiene education who in turn can train the children.