KOLKATA: Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has declared all its wards open defecation-free following an exercise of construction of some 70 odd modern toilets on a war footing. Some open toilets were existing in the city, the bulk of which were located on the side of canals. In the meeting of Board of Administrators (BOA) held in June, the proposal of open defecation-free Kolkata was approved.
The ward co-ordinators were asked to prepare a list of open toilets and submit the same before the civic body so that they could be replaced by modern toilets. "We had received a list of around 70 odd open toilets and the construction of modern toilets at these places was taken up on war footing. Now, all the 144 wards under KMC are open defecation-free," Swapan Samaddar, member BOA, KMC in-charge of Environment wing said.
Such toilets were mostly in wards 36, 57and 58. Meanwhile, over 400 pay and use toilets have come up in the city and some of them are lying unused because of disruption in water connection, electricity or similar issues. The KMC has sought a list of such facilities so that restoration can be done in quick time.