Tiruvallur municipality to be open defecation free

CHENNAI: The Tiruvallur municipality will soon declare the city as an ‘Open Defecation Free’ municipality, given that the municipality has taken an undertaking from state bodies, apart from schools and other agencies, that they would never use open places to attend their nature’s call in the city.
In a statement, the municipality commisioner S Senthil Kumaran stated that people can submit their objections within 15 days along with the reasons for the municipality move to declare Tiruvallur an ‘Open Defecation Free’ municipality. They can approach either in person or send letters and e-mails, the official statement mentioned.
There are few other municipalities like Poonamallee, Kancheepuram and Avadi which have already been declared as ‘Open Defecation Free’ municipalities.
A municipality officer in Tiruvallur said, “There are about 27 wards in the municipality. Under the Clean India campaign, the municipality has banned using toilets in open spaces in 17 wards in Tiruvallur. In continuance, the municipality has declared the remaining 10 wards to follow the same.”
As per statistics from 2011, there are about 14,014 residences and at least 55,722 people living in the 27 wards in the Tiruvallur municipality. After implementation of the Clean India campaign, the municipality has built at least 707 toilets for individuals in Tiruvallur city. Apart from this, 13 general public toilets and few other NGOs have built separate toilets, which are being either maintained by the NGOs or the municipality.
The municipality officials have visited the schools and colleges in the city and have taken an undertaking from them that they would never use open toilets here after. A team of municipality officials have assigned to collect the undertaking from the members of the self-help group, wards representatives, other officials employed in state, central and private firms in the city too.