- बुधबार, ५ वैशाख, २०८१
Nepalgunj, Dec. 26: Various stakeholders have expressed doubt over reaching the target of declaring Banke district an open defecation free zone by 2016.
The time to meet the target in the district has been set a year before the time determined by the national programme to declare all districts open defecation free by 2017.
The office-bearers of various government and non-government agencies including district drinking water and sanitation coordination committee are not confident about the fulfillment of the target in the said time.
‘It is hard time meeting the target set in the stipulated period due to cultural practices of the society, deficit coordination and negativism about the initiative’, said Chief of Drinking Water and Sanitation Division, Raj Kumar Chaudhary, who is also assigned as a member-secretary of the committee.
Out of 46 VDCs and a municipality in the district, only five VDCs Radhapur, Sitapur, Bageswori, Naubasta and Baniyabhar have been so far declared open defecation free area.
The campaign is on to declare additional 15 VDCs as open defecation free VDCs within the current fiscal year.
According to the statistics, only 54 per cent of total households in the district have constructed toilets. RSS
