Shimla: Rural women have emerged as the main drivers of the campaign to free the state from the unhealthy practice of open defecation in almost all gram panchayats of the hill state.

In Satara, government officials catch public defecators with their pants down

Bulletin boards on the sleepy walls of village panchayat offices, rarely greeted with a glance, have started attracting a loyal audience in parts of Satara district over the last three years.

BHUBANESWAR: Despite the enormity of waterborne epidemics in Orissa, figures don't add up to suggest any encouraging trend on sanitation front.

As of August 2010, the State has been able to construct over 30 lakh individual household toilets. But the total requirement is around 71 lakh.

Exposed, untreated excrement can kill by the million. One of the hardest-won UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is a 2015 target of halving the proportion of those without sustainable access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. Even if achieved, the target would still leave some 500 million on the planet without this basic requirement for survival and dignity.

Charanjit Ahuja

Chandigarh: The Himachal Pradesh government has been able to cover 78% of its rural population under rural employment guarantee scheme.

Sources in the rural development department told FE

KOCHI: The first

Bhakti V Hegde Mangalore, July 21, DHNS

The programme is called the

Visakhapatnam, July 12: Stating that there was an urgent need to launch total sanitation programme in the city, the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) commissioner, Mr V.N. Vishnu, said that over four lakh people living within the GVMC limits live in areas where sanitation facil-ities are not prevalent. This was in spite of the availability of Sulabh complexes, he said.

Gulbarga district stands last place in the State with regard to the construction of toilets under the total sanitation programme.