As many as 253 gram panchayats have been declared

CHANDGARH: All the households in Kaluana village of Sirsa district have access to sanitation facilities as it has managed to get rid of the practice of open defecation. And thanks to the plantation drive, it now wears a green cap. The village school has clean and functional toilets and has a pick-up van too. Kaluana generates electricity from its own biogas plant.

A leading international sanitation NGO, Sulabh International, will start its operation in Japan by constructing six low cost toilets popularly known as "Sulabh Sauchalaya" in rural areas of Japan.

The State government will construct 33 lakh toilets in the next two years, announced Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister Jagadish Shettar on Thursday.

Collector Chandrakant Dalvi, who had decided to crack the whip on gram panchayats and members, who have not constructed toilet blocks, have asked the block development officer to issue show-cause notices to erring sarpanch's in the villages.

The Haryana Rural Development Fund Administration Board has sanctioned Rs 696 crore to execute various development works during the current financial year. Out of this, expenditure to the tune of Rs 415.60 crore had already been incurred so far.

Pune Collector Chandrakant Dalvi has decided to crack the whip on gram panchayats that have not constructed toilet blocks and nearly 600 sarpanchs and panchayat members will be stripped off their posts for not adhering to rules. The move comes as part of the effort to make Pune an open defecation-free district by June next year.

Rural Development Minister C P Joshi said on Thursday that government was considering interlinking its rural sanitation programme with NREGA to eradicateopen defecation by 2010. Joshi said interlinking would lead to utilisation of funds available under material and labour components of NREGA and thereby expedite the programme.