Bengaluru: The State government has declared 76 per cent of the rural population of state as not dependent on open defecation anymore. The authorities have set a target of providing individual household toilets to all urban and rural families by March next year.

However, less than 40 per cent of the rural population in five districts has individual household toilets. Yadgir sits at the bottom of the table with just 27 per cent coverage. The other districts that have performed poorly in the implementation of the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan programme are Kalaburagi (39 per cent), Raichur (36 per cent), Bidar (31 per cent), and Vijayapura (29 per cent).

On Monday, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister H.K. Patil presented the Gandhi Gram Puraskar to 1,900 gram panchayats that have achieved 100% success in construction of toilets. The award carries a cash prize of Rs. 5 lakh.

Siddaramaiah called upon elected representatives and the public to work towards making sanitation “a birth right of all citizens”. The NDA government at the Centre launched the Swachh Bharat Mission on the Gandhi Jayanti three years ago to free the country of open defecation.

Giving an account of the progress of the cleanliness campaign in rural areas of the State, the chief ministger said 31.12 lakh toilets have been constructed during the last four years and four months, including 5.05 lakh in 2013-14, 7.79 lakh in 2014-15, 5.3 lakh in 2015-16, and 5.78 lakh as on September 25 during this year.

Rural Development Minister Patil said 11 districts in the State — Shivamogga, Chikkamagalu- ru, Mandya, Ramanagaram, Kolar, Hassan, Kodagu, Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Bengaluru Urban and Bengauru Rural — are free of open defecation.