Additional Chief Secretary of Rural Development Department Navraj Sandhu said efforts will be made to change the mindset of the people so that they could feel the need to have a toilet in their households and use them to avoid ill effects of open defecation.
She said that now the government is no more going to give Rs 12,000 for construction of toilets, instead incentives will be given to village panchayats for maintaining cleanliness.
Now, the most overall clean and functional public toilet at district level will get an award of Rs 10,000 each month under Swarn Jayanti Award for Sanitation. One clean place can become learning laboratory for other neighboring localities, Sandhu added.
Quoting Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, she said he wants "Haryana villages should not only be open defecation free but should also look clean".
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For this, he has announced incentives for village panchayats as rewards, she said.
Sandhu said the government has fixed target of making all districts of Haryana open defecation free by December next year and eight districts including Gurgaon would be made open defecation free by November 1 this year.
Sandhu asked Deputy Commissioners to work out a strategy for urban areas as well because rural areas will meet the target but urban slums and migratory population are a big challenge especially in big cities like Gurgaon and Faridabad.
Sandhu was addressing the Divisional Workshop on open defecation free strategy for Swachh Haryana organised by Development and Panchayat Department Haryana, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation Government of India and Water and Sanitation Program of World Bank Group where officers of Gurgaon, Bhiwani, Faridabad, Rewari, Jind, Mahendergarh, Palwal and Mewat attended the workshop.