The much touted Swachh Bharat Abhiyan looks to have turned into a flop show in Jammu and Kashmir, if the amount of muck churned out during the recent rains are any indication. One long spell of rain has turned the roads and lanes as sewer canal topped with slush and garbage. Sanitation in Jammu and Kashmir is among the worst in the country, with more than 54 per cent of more than 1.2 million households without toilets and the 2014-15 target for household latrines falling short by 86 per cent, according to government data. The data states that while J&K is ranked third, the two worst states are Odisha and Bihar. Not only that about 96 per cent of the money granted by Delhi for the sanitation programme for 2014-15, using Rs 4.66 crore of Rs 121.52 crore remained unused. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s much-talked-about sanitation programme, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA), is largely unimplemented in J&K, which is partly ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party. In J&K, 6,351 schools lack toilets for girls and 8,098 lack toilets for boys. More than 71 per cent of schools have no basins or taps to wash hands near toilets and urinals. The situation is similar in cities and healthcare institutions as well. Successor to an earlier sanitation programme called the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, SBA seeks to eliminate open defecation in rural areas of the country by 2019. The state has done little to mitigate health threats from improper sanitary facilities for households and school children. Official data since 2010 shows the state never completed its annual objectives in construction of household toilets. Of J&K’s three regions, Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, two districts, Kargil and Leh, in the mountainous Ladakh region, did better in household toilet construction than Kashmir and Jammu divisions.
