 "Children run past the toilets built by the state government under the Nirmal Bangla Abhijan in Bagula I in Nadia, West Bengal")
Out of 204,245 villages that self-declared to be open-defecation free (ODF), only 105,456 villages or 51.6% have been verified by state governments, according to this reply to the Lok Sabha (lower house of Parliament) by Narendra Singh Tomar, minister for drinking water and sanitation, on August 3, 2017.
An independent verification agency has been appointed to conduct the National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey to measure the progress made by states.
The survey is scheduled to start from September/October, Tomar told the Lok Sabha.
Progress of sanitation was to be independently verified,
