This Article is From Jul 20, 2015

'Toilet For All' Remains a Dream in PM Modi's Model Village

The rains in July have bared the reality of the shoddy job done on the toilets. The pits for some of these toilets have already got clogged with mud and dirt.

Jayapura: An elderly woman sits outside a brand new toilet that stands shut, unused, in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's model village Jayapura, just outside Varanasi.

"There is no water connection. There is not even a latch from inside, so how can we go?" she says.

The cubicle toilet is one of the 600 that have been built in the village as part of PM Modi's model village or "Adarsh Gram Yojana."

The village of 3,000 was adopted by PM Modi last year and was promised the best of infrastructure and amenities.

But none of the 600 toilets have a water connection and around eight have already broken down or been washed away.

Just as the rain started, the pits for some of the toilets got clogged with mud and dirt. In a few others the construction hasn't been finished.

"They have only dug up a five feet pit for the waste to go into. How long will that last? Already, it has got stuck for some of the houses," said Rajkumar, a resident.

One doesn't have to walk too far to find unused toilets in the village. NDTV found at least seven which had broken within a month and some had been left unfinished.

"How are children supposed to take water inside?  There is no water, and so it gets dirty. That's why people don't want to use it," said another resident Ramjeet Varma.

When asked, the district administration said they were put up by the PM's own team and refused to comment.

Narayan Patel, the village head, said, "We have noted the problems and those that installed them will fix it soon."

Till then, however, it is a trip to the fields for many residents of Jayapura, despite hopes that there would be no more open defecation.
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