71L households got toilets under Nirmal Bangla project: Derek

Kolkata: Highlighting the overall development of Bengal undertaken by the Mamata Banerjee government, Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien on Wednesday said the state government has set a milestone by ensuring all districts Open Defecation Free with setting up of toilets in 71 lakh households under the Nirmal Bangla project.

While addressing Wednesday's series of 'Soja Banglae Bolchi', O'Brien said: "All districts and Gram Panchayats are now Open Defecation Free. Under the project Nirmal Bangla, toilets have been set up in 71 lakh households since 2012."

He also added: "Additional 14,000 hectare agricultural land has been brought under irrigation in 2019-20." The successful completion of the projects that brought the large hectares of land under irrigation has helped in increasing yield of crops in the state itself.

In the series of 'Soja Banglae Bolchi', the Trinamool Congress MP has also stated about different infrastructural development carried out in the past nine years.

He has also highlighted the construction of 20 new bridges in the state in 2019-20. At the same time, more than 100 bridges have been repaired ensuring smooth flow of traffic across the state. Besides construction and repairing of bridges, the Bengal government has successfully constructed 5,000 km new roads only in 2018-19 fiscal under the project Banglar Gramin Sadak Yojona (BGSY) which is highest in terms of road construction projects in the state so far.

The state Panchayats and Rural Development department has constructed 288 km road under BGSY in the first four months of the 2020-21 financial year despite lockdown and a total of 2,000 km roads will be constructed under the BGSY in the rest of the fiscal. So far, the state government has constructed a total of 34,000 km of rural roads under the scheme for which the state government bears almost 50 percent of the project cost.