West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has declared Nadia District as the first Open Defecation Free (ODF) district in India. The district has achieved this feat due to its collaborative effort with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and World Bank. Both of these organizations aimed at construction of toilets across the district.
Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee launched Mission Nirmal Bangla (MNB) on 30 April 2015 and declared the day as Nirmal Bangla Diwas to mark the occasion.
The mission is similar to Narendra Modi’s Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), which was launched on 2 October 2014 with the objective of ensuring cleanliness all over India by 2 October 2019, which marks the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
Tidbits
- India is the country with the highest number of people practising open defecation: around 600 million people. (Nearly 50% of India’s Population).
- Open defecation can be correlated with a high child mortality, undernutrition, poverty and large disparities between the rich and poor.
- Open defecation is a major factor in causing various diseases such as diarrhoea, intestinal worm infections, typhoid, cholera, hepatitis..etc
- Open defecation is a leading cause of diarrheal death; 2,000 children under the age of five die every day.
- World Toilet Day is observed on November 19. Equality, Dignity and the Link Between Gender-Based Violence and Sanitation was the theme for the 2014 World Toilet Day.
