As the debate rages on the Yogi government’s move to build a huge statue of Lord Ram in a bid to boost Uttar Pradesh’s tourism and a controversial decision to leave out Taj Mahal from it’s official tourism booklet, (un)surprisingly, the most important move of Yogi Adityanath has perhaps got little or no coverage in the Left leaning media.
In what can be said to be nothing short of a miracle, Uttar Pradesh government built a record 3.52 lakh toilets in just 17 days as a part of the Centre’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan campaign.
The 17 day period began from 15th September and lasted till 2nd October as a part of Swachhta hi Seva campaign which saw record number of toilets being built across India. Rajasthan finished second with over 2.5 lakh toilets being built during the same period. Uttar Pradesh has set itself a goal of being declared Open Defecation Free(ODF) by May, 2019. For this goal to be achieved approximately 44,000 toilets need to be constructed everyday in the state according to it’s Chief Secretary Rajiv Kumar. Needless to say, if the current pace of building of toilets sustain, the state might well achieve it’s target which seemed impossible not so long ago.
(http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/…/articles…/60927516.cms)
A survey by The Quality Council of India in August, 2017 found that Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were one of the worst performers in rural sanitation, leading to extensive criticism of Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath, completely forgetting the fact that it was not even six months since Yogi took over the reins of the state. Come October, the Yogi government has comfortably managed to shut it’s critics down who questioned his administrative calibre.
(https://scroll.in/…/uttarpradesh-bihar-among-the-worst-per…)
The near miraculous number was achieved on the backdrop of a slew of decisions taken by the state government to encourage toilet building. A more realistic target of making the state Open Defecation Free has been set owing to the sheer size of the state. Earlier, for building the toilets both the Central and state governments would provide a total of Rs. 8,000 for each toilet. The Ministry of Housing and Poverty Alleviation on September 1, 2017 an additional Rs. 12,000 for building of each toilet in the urban areas of Uttar Pradesh, taking the total sum provided by the government for each toilet to Rs. 20,000. The state is all set to provide 13.30 lakh urban households with tap water connections under the Atal Yojana. The government also allocated Rs.11,000 crore to improve it’s poor sewage treatment.
(http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=170463)
However, despite the incentives some villages oversaw little progress in sanitation despite being told that funds will not be a problem. One such village in the district of Bhadarsa which faced power cut for sometime after the state government ordered to cut the power of the village for failing to build toilets despite the funds being allocated so as to aid the building of multiple toilets.
(http://zeenews.india.com/…/govt-cuts-power-supply-of-houses…)
The government’s carrot and stick policy seems to be working. The result is:
nagar panchayat in Sahanpur in Bijnore district was declared open defecation free in September. 12 such nagar panchayats and local bodies are in line to be declared ODF who are awaiting a third party inspection.
There is little doubt that the Namami Gange project has currently not gone according to plan as pointed out here (https://tfipost.com/2017/09/uma-bharti-ganga-01/) which resulted in Uma Bharti being shunted out from the project. However it is not as disastrous as it seems, and after the arrival of Nitin Gadkari, the Yogi-Gadkari duo seems to be doing the trick as all villages on banks of river Ganga have been declared defecation free. Also, as many as 16 people from different villages of the district have been booked for allegedly “misusing” the public money by not constructing a toilet in their houses even after getting funds from the government under the Namami Gange scheme and more stringent actions are believed to befall individuals who fail to adhere to the timeline.
Another benefit of the massive toilet building exercise taken up by the government is that it will directly lead to women empowerment especially in states like Uttar Pradesh. On May 27,2014 the Badaun gang rape case which resulted in two girls being raped and then murdered by tying them to a mango tree and subsequently hanging them. This case shook the whole nation and was arguably the biggest case since Nirbhaya.
Initial findings revealed that the two girls due to absence of toilet ventured into the fields late in the night to defecate in open when the purported incident took place. While multiple versions of this case has been reported and owing to the political pressure yielded by the then SP government in a bid to save it’s face, the incident was declared a case of honour killing and further stated that one of the girls wasn’t raped. Needless to say, the CBI report had various loopholes and the initial findings are widely believed to be true. To prevent such incidents it is a must that every village is ODF.
Women who live in rural or poor urban areas, either use public bathrooms, which cost money that many cannot afford, travel far distances, use shared toilets, or relieve themselves in open areas. Without sanitation facilities, 1 in 3 women worldwide risk shame, disease, harassment and are attacked, because they have nowhere safe to go to the toilet.
(http://www.wateraid.org/…/take-action-to-support-the-1-in-3…)
One must have seen the Swachhta hi Seva campaign across many places notably during Australia’s tour of India where it was mentioned multiple times. PM Modi’s naysayers dubbed it as a PR exercise and some quarters even accused him of deflecting the national mood from real issues. However, during the 17 day period no less than 18,24,549 toilets were built across the country. The numbers are damning and are for all to see.
Still the Left leaning media decides to concentrate on which colour of public transport buses
is the Yogi government inaugurating while Yogi Adityanath is quietly working his way up and putting Uttar Pradesh on the map again.
It doesn’t matter which what is the colour of the clothes that Yogi Adityanath wears till his administration keeps working on a break neck speed on such issues.
One hopes that the current speed sustains and Uttar Pradesh achieves it’s targets which were labelled as unrealistic not so long ago. Yogi’s appointment as CM ruffled many feathers both within and outside of the BJP but there’s a reason why he was selected. It seems he is no mood to let down the immense faith shown in him by PM Modi and Amit Shah.