Nitish govt increases state share for toilet construction

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today said the state government has increased its contribution for construction of per toilet to Rs 8,000 from Rs 1,333 to end open defecation.
The Centre provides Rs 4,000 for construction of per toilet in urban areas. Hence, the combined money from the state and the Centre for constructing per toilet now would be Rs 12,000, the chief minister said at a function of Public Health Engineering Department (PHED).
Kumar said that since the earlier amount was not sufficient for constructing good toilets, the state government had decided to enhance its share to Rs 8,000.
He visited an exhibition of different models of toilet on the occasion.

He also inaugurated through remote a 'Swachta Park', constructed by Global Sanitation Fund organisation, at Jhanjharpur in Madhubani district.
He said that coupons were given to beneficiaries for construction of toilets of their choice. Emphasising on creating awareness among the people for using toilets, Kumar said community toilets did not succeed as there was a problem in keeping it clean.

The Bihar chief minister said that the state government was scaling up the target on availability of water for its citizens.
"In place of the earlier target of 40 litres a day for each citizen, the state has increased it upto 55 litres daily for every person," he said.

Likewise, now the target was set to install a handpump for 100 people in place of 250 people earlier.
Kumar said the state government had set a target to achieve 20 per cent water supply in rural areas by 2016-17.
The chief minister launched a toll-free number for people to register complaints with the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED).