The Andhra Pradesh government has set an ambitious target of becoming open defecation-free by January 1st, 2016.
"Under Phase 1 of the Swachh Andhra Pradesh program, make AP open defecation-free by January 2016," Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu told all Municipal Commissioners in Vijayawada today.
Currently, under the IHHL scheme, 59,000 toilets have been built in the State against the sanctioned 1.14 lakh toilets. The state government had set October 2, 2015, as the deadline for completion.
The Chief Minister instructed officials to form a committee by involving Jack Sim, the founder of the World Toilet Organisation, and look at ways to achieve the targets.
He reprimanded the Commissioners for failing to educate the public on the need to have toilets.
The Chief Minister also said that all towns were strewn with litter, and directed all the municipalities to set certain norms for every village/town in the State in order to declare them as litter-free and open defecation-free.
He also directed that sweeping and cleaning of all public places should happen before midnight, to avoid hindrance to the traffic on the roads due to cleaning.
"I will make surprise visits to all municipalities," the Chief Minister said.
filed in:Chandrababu Naidu, Cleanliness, Municipal Bodies