Kolhapur district ahead in Maharashtra in ODF

Kolhapur: The district tops the Open Defecation Free (ODF) list with as many as 613 villages qualifying in the list of the total 1,029 villages.Four talukas from the district have been declared 100% ODF, with every house in these villages having proper defecation amenities.
Kolhapur is followed by Satara, Sindhudurg, Ratnagiri, Pune, Nashik and Sangli districts.A Kolhapur zilla parishad official stated that they are focussing on 168 more villages for ODF by March 2016.
Chandrakant Kabade, the information communication expert for the Swachha Bharat Abhiyan in the Kolhapur ZP, said, "According to the Swachha Bharat Mission's new guidelines, for a village to be ODF, it is necessary that 90% families in the village have their own toilets. There are 613 grampanchayats in the Kolhapur district that fall under this category. A proposal on this was submitted to the state, and after inspection through a private agency, these hamlets were declared ODF villages. Kolhapur is now leading the tally with maximum ODF villages in the district."
Kabade added that of the total 12 talukas in the district, four - Panhala, Bhudargad, Ajara and Gaganbawada are completely ODF talukas.
"Our next target is to select 168 villages and try to make them ODF. We plan to construct 17,220 toilets in these villages. The work of 7,000 units is already underway. We hope that by March 2016, these villages will also be included in the ODF list and we will reach closer to make the district ODF," he said.