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The Ministry of Drinking water and Sanitation on Friday finalised its 100-day plan, under which it has decided to construct one toilet every second by the end of August this year.
Sarswati Prasad, joint secretary for sanitation, issued an order to each state, giving them their respective targets for the next two months.
The ministry has set the target of constructing 5.2 million toilets by August 31. The total target of 2014-15 is 12.5 million toilets
The new BJP-led government, which was sworn in on May 26 this year, had asked the ministry to prepare a 100-day plan. The 100th day ends on August 31.
This impractical target follows in the wake of the poor progress report of construction of toilets in April and May. According to Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA) website, zero number of toilets were constructed in April. The total number of toilets constructed in April and May put together comes to about 86,000. This means that a large number of toilets would have to be built in a short period to meet the targets.
The calculation by Down To Earth (see box), showing how unrealistic this target is, has not included the number of community sanitation complexes, school toilets, and aanganwadi toilets. It is only for individual household latrines (IHHL), in which case the target appears even more absurd.
In the order, the ministry has directed the states to take immediate steps to achieve their targets within the stipulated time and also ensure reporting of the progress on the online monitoring system of NBA on priority basis.
| Unrealistic target | |
| Target for IHHLs till August 31st (100 days) | 5,222,068 |
| Toilets constructed (IHHL) till May | 86,271 |
| Remaining target to be achieved by August 31 | 5,135,797 |
| Toilet would be constructed each day | 82,835 |
| Toilets to be constructed each hour | 3,451 |
| Toilets to be constructed every minute | 58 |
| Toilets to be constructed every second | 1 |