CV News/ Saturday, January 19, 2019
Gujarat’s grassroots organization working among the Valmiki community, Manav Garima, has disputed the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) claim that the city has become open defecation free. In a statement, Manav Garima convener Parsottam Vaghela has said that one has only to visit the slum area along the Chandrabhaga Bridge, next to the Gandhi Ashram, to verify whether it is true.
On either side of the bridge, situated in Vadaj area of Ahmedabad, the slums have no working toilet facility, nor is there any drainage connectoin, the statement said, adding, women and men alike go out to defecate in the open. There are public toilets, but they are unusable, as they do not have any doors, and there is no running water connection.
As a result, the statement estimates, about 500 people to out to defecate in the open in the wee hours. “This is not the only spot where the situation is so bad”, it said, adding, “All of it is a mockery of the Swacch Bharat Abhiyan.”