Chandigarh’s cleanliness status gets upgrade

Union ministry of housing and urban affairs has granted the status of Open Defecation Free (ODF) ++ to the city

Union ministry of housing and urban affairs has granted the status of Open Defecation Free (ODF) ++ to the city.

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MC commissioner KK Yadav said, Chandigarh had achieved the ODF status on 2nd October 2016 and now, the status has been upgraded to ODF++.

He said, as per the Centre’s guidelines, issued last year, a city can be declared ODF++ , if 25% of toilets fulfil additional conditions like availability of sanitary napkins vending machines, proper ventilation, availability of water 24 hours and proper signage among other things. He said, 90 toilets in the city fulfilled the criteria.

“There are over 274 public and 31 community toilets in city and 25% of them now have better facilities as required to achieve the ODF++ status,” he said.

The status was granted after third party inspection by an independent agency from the central government in September, said Yadav.

Convener of city forum of residents welfare organisations (CFORWO), Vinod Vashisht said,“The certification is important for the city as the next cleanliness survey will be conducted in January 2020 and achieving the status is a pre-qualifying condition to compete for five-star and above rankings.”

So far 244 cities among the 4,372 urban local bodies of the country have been certified as ODF++ while 586 urban cities have ODF+ status.