Karnataka has proposed an innovative community sanitary complex model for the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

Participating in the first meeting of the sub-group of the Chief Ministers on Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in New Delhi, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said each Community Sanitary Complex consists of seven toilets, four bathrooms, washing platforms, an attender room, a washing machine, and independent water and power supply at a unit cost of Rs 20 lakhs.

Each year 1,000 units of Community Sanitary Complexes are planned to be constructed for which Rs 200 crore is needed.

“The Central Government is requested to provide adequate funds in this regard,” Siddaramaiah said. Karnataka has taken special initiatives to implement Swachh Bharat Mission in the rural areas.

Siddaramaiah said under the ‘Grameena Gaurava’ scheme launched last year, a programme for construction of bathroom-cum-toilets and not merely toilets had been taken up in rural areas.

“Around 3 lakh bathroom-cum-toilets would be constructed under this programme during the current year,” he added.

A baseline survey conducted in 2012-13 showed that there were 54.99 lakh households without toilets in rural areas.

“To cover these households by the end of 2018-19, the State has devised a strategy right from the gram panchayat to the district level and accordingly annual targets have been fixed,” the Chief Minister said.

Anganwadi

The unit cost of each anganawdi toilet needs to enhanced from Rs 8,000 to Rs 15,000 and similarly for school toilets the unit cost is to be enhanced from Rs 35,000 to Rs 50,000.

The upper limit for a Solid and Liquid Waste Management (SLWM) unit for a gram panchayat with 500 households was Rs 20 lakh.

In Karnataka the size of gram panchayats was bigger with an average of 1,350 households. Therefore, it was suggested to increase the SLWM unit cost to Rs 40 lakh to Rs 50 lakh for each Gram Panchayat, depending on the population, Siddaramaiah explained.

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