Over 5,000 Anganwadi schools in Gujarat lack toilets: CAG

A report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, tabled before the Gujarat Assembly today, notes that more than 5,000 Anganwadi centers in the state did not have toilets as of the last year.
The BJP government tabled the audit report on local bodies for the year ended on March 2013 today, the last day of the legislature's session.
The performance audit of 'total sanitation campaign' was conducted for the period 2008-2013, it said.
The campaign, launched by the Centre in 1999, was renamed as Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan in 2012. The CAG report noted several deficiencies in its implementation in rural parts of Gujarat.

The scheme provides for construction of toilets at Anganwadis (government-run nursery or primary schools). As per the target set by the Gujarat government, 22,505 Anganwadi toilets (ATs) were to be constructed by March 2009. It was later revised to 30,516 in April 2012.
"Against the overall target of 30,516 ATs, the achievement was 25,422 (83 per cent) as of March 2013. The position in Jamnagar was low and achievement was only 47 per cent. Resultantly, children of Anganwadis continued to be deprived of a basic amenity," said the CAG report.
Incidentally, yesterday the Gujarat Assembly passed a Bill making having a toilet at home a pre-requisite for contesting the local body polls.