Declared open defecation-free a year ago, the nondescript Pokhri village here is home to some other backward caste families who claim they are forced to defecate in the open as they are yet to receive funds for building toilets.
Ganga Sai, who is partially paralysed and lives in the outer part of Pokhri, only wishes to have a toilet in her house which would prevent her from relieving in the open.
The village was declared open defecation free under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's flagship Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) last year but she and some other backward caste families living in a colony at one of the ends of the village claim they are still deprived of toilet facility.
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"The upper caste farmers have built toilets in their homes but we cannot afford to built on own," says Sai, who belongs to SC community.
Sarpanch Amol Kakde, however, dismisses these claims saying about 47 families living in that colony have actually encroached over government land and are not considered to be part of the village and counted among its families.
Pokhri has the distinction of being open defecation-free, a feat few of the villages in the Marathawada region of Maharashtra enjoy. However, some SC/ST residents blame gram panchayat of caste-based discrimination in building toilets.
Under SBM, a target has been set to make the country open defecation free by October 2, 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
To meet the target of the mission, state governments and authorities concerned are working at a fast pace to meet the numbers, making them somehow lose the objective of the mission, according to experts who spoke at a FEJI UNICEF organised workshop on water, sanitation and hygiene.
Kakde says that the village, which is 6 km from here, was declared open defecation free on October 2, last year. It also has the honour of being ISO 9001: 2008 certified and a recipient of Nirmal Gram Award.
The village, which has 80 per cent literacy, has amenities like RO water filter, solar powered street lights and CCTV surveillance near the gram panchayat building which also houses an Anganwadi.
The village head says 260 families of about 1,300 people live and every household has individual latrine which are connected to 40-45 soak pits and further to a drain outside the village.
However, Dalits living in an outer pocket of the village contradict his claims.
Pandernath Namdeo Balerao, who lives in the outer part of the village, which abruptly starts after the concrete road ends at the gate of Zila Parishad's upper primary school, claims they are deprived of basic facilities like drinking water leave alone toilets.
Balerao, a watchman, said his family has been living here for generations but lack the facility of toilet.
Though they have access to a set of community latrines
near their houses but those are locked with the keys in the possession of village Kotwal and need to ask for it every time one wants to use it.
"The rich upper caste farmers can afford to build toilets and receive the SBM fund for toilet construction... But most of us are just farm labourers belonging to SC/ST who can hardly make the ends meet," Balerao says.
Women of the locality, mostly belonging to Matam tribes, claim that they have not received any funds for building latrine and still relieve in open.
Malan Bai, a casual labour, says, "You can see the stark difference in this part of the village and the area where the upper caste farmers live.
"Many of them built toilets in their homes and got the funds for it but we can't. If we spend on toilets, how will we purchase food?"
Ruksana, a mother of eight, says she can hardly make ends meet with a meager income. Her seven daughters, who are in age group of 4 to 15 years, also defecate in the adjacent farms like others of this small area.
Two of the better off families in this colony built toilets in their homes but have not received the fund even after months have passed since they informed panchayat.
Another woman claims that she got a toilet built in her house about a year ago but the village authorities have not given the fund of Rs 12,000 yet.
The sarpanch, when asked, says, "We can't extend support to them as they do not have valid documents. Still, 28 families might receive the SBM amount but can't say about the others."
When asked that if 47 families are defecating in open then how the can village be considered open defecation free, he says, "They are not counted in Pokhri and all the 260 other families have individual laterines."
On the allegation of the sarpanch that the outer colony people are encroachers, many of them furnished their Aadhaar cards and voter IDs which were issued in 1994 with Pokhri mentioned in their address.
