MARGAO: Government’s plans to make Goa open defecation free by the end of this month is faced with a major hurdle with people finding it difficult to make the prescribed payment amounting to Rs 10,000 in the general category.
In the 30 villages of Salcete, altogether 3,415 households have been identified to be without toilet facilities in the survey conducted by Director of Rural Development Agency and the panchayats concerned have been given the application forms to be given to those households.
Most of the panchayats in Salcete have distributed the application forms and the people are supposed to fill them up and submit latest by February 20, 2019 along with the prescribed fees which is 10 per cent of the estimated cost of the toilet for people in the general category.
Given the fact that the toilets are estimated to cost around Rs 40,000, the payment to be made by people in general category works out to around Rs 10,000 while for the SC, ST and Below Poverty Line people it is fixed at Rs 2,500 and those belonging to Other Backward Community have to pay Rs 5000.
However, the people belonging to the general category are finding it difficult to pay the Rs 10,000 at such short notice and they opined that the government should have given them some time to gather that much of money.
In 13 villages of Salcete, more than 1000 households are without toilet facilities with Nuvem having the highest figure of 319 houses followed by Velim where 301 houses do not have toilets. And while Cana Benaulim has 266 houses without toilets, in Loutolim there are 240 houses without toilets.
The other villages having above 100 but below 200 houses that do not have toilets are Chinchinim-Deussua, Varca, Betalbatim, Colva, Curtorim, Paroda, Sao Jose de Areal, Rachol and Raia.
Interestingly Rumdamol Davorlim village does not have a single house without toilet while both Aquem Baixo and Orlim villages have 23 houses each without toilets.
