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Panchayat denies ration to families for defecating in open
On October 20, Goutami gram panchayat sarpanch Sushant Swain issued a notice that those who did not have toilets in their homes would not get PDS ration.
A village in Odisha’s coastal Ganjam district has stopped the subsidised ration under the Public Distribution System (PDS) of two dozen families for defecating in the open, officials said on Friday.
On October 20, Goutami gram panchayat sarpanch Sushant Swain issued a notice that those who did not have toilets in their homes would not get PDS ration. By Friday, he had penalised 24 families for continuing to defecate in the open.
“Our goal is to make the panchayat open defecation-free. Households were given money under the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) but they are yet to comply. So we had to take a drastic step,” he said. The panchayat has around 2,000 households with a population of 4,563. Of these, 180 families do not have toilets in their houses, he said.
One of the villagers to be penalised, Sahadev Lenka, said he would request the sarpanch to resume his PDS supply. “I will build a toilet soon,” he said. The sarpanch said people have two months’ time to do so under SBM.
Ganjam district collector Vijay Amruta Kulange said, “Food is a basic right of any individual. This violates the Food Security Act. I will ask the sarpanch to revoke his order and start giving PDS supply to all families.”
