Over 14,000 villages declared open defecation free in C'garh

Over14,000villages have been declared open defecation free (ODF)so far in Chhattisgarh which has set the target of becoming anODFstate by October, 2018.
"Under the Prime Minister's clean India mission, we have made14,064 villages of the stateopen defecation free," aPanchayat and Rural Development Departmentofficial said today.
The state has 27 districts and of them five-- Dhamtari, Mungeli, Rajnandgaon, Sarguja and Durg ---have so far been declared as ODF.
A total83 development blocks and 7984 gram panchayats of the state has been declared ODF, he said.
As many as26 lakh 10 thousand 225 toilets have been constructed till now in the state, he said.

The Centre has set the target under 'Swachh Bharat Mission' to declare the entire country asODFby October 2, 2019 but Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh is expecting to achieve the target a year before in 2018 in the state keeping in view the enthusiastic response of the people towards the mission, the official said.
All the concerned departments, including school education, health, women and child development and public health engineering besides panchayat and rural development officials have been asked to work in coordination to scale the target within stipulated time, he said.
A public awareness campaign is being held continuously in the villages to encourage the people to built toilets in their houses, he added.