Date:13/10/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/13/stories/2008101358950600.htm

Tamil Nadu

31,772 households to get toilets in Pudukottai

M. Balaganessin

Hygiene talk: S. Regupathy, Union Minister of State for Environment and Forest, second from right, presiding over a meeting at Pudukottai on Saturday.

PUDUKOTTAI: A target of 31,772 toilets has been fixed for the current fiscal under the subsidy-based ‘total rural sanitation’ programme in the district, Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests S. Regupathy said.

Presiding over the District Vigilance and Monitoring Committee meeting held here on Saturday, Mr. Regupathy said that each beneficiary was sanctioned a subsidy of Rs.2,200 under the scheme and a total of 1,860 toilets had been constructed so far.

Under the Indira Awas Yojana scheme, the work on the construction of 1,897 new houses, at an expenditure of Rs.55,000 each, had been taken up in parts of the district.

A total of 238 ‘kuchcha’ houses had been developed out of the target of 492 houses. A sum of Rs. 15,000 was being spent on each ‘kuchcha’ house, he said.

Mr. Regupathy said that special attention was being paid for the construction of toilets in schools.

Out of a target of 135 schools, toilets had been constructed in 28 institutions at an expenditure of Rs.20,000 each. On the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, he said that 4.17 lakh persons belonging to 2.47 lakh families had registered their names to benefit under the scheme.

The District Collector Reeta Harish Thakkar, MLAs R. Nedunchezhian and S. Subramanian were among those who participated.