Udupi: Udupi declared as Open Defecation Free city here on Wednesday. Meenakshi Bannanje, president of the Udupi City Municipal Council (CMC), said that Udupi is the first CMC in the State among the municipal bodies having a population between one and five lakh in the State to be declared as Open Defecation Free city.

A certificate to this effect was handed over by Abhinav Yadav, Project Manager, Quality Council of India and Swachh Bharat Mission -Open Defecation Free Campaign.

She said that the CMC had encouraged the families whose houses did not have toilets, to build them. The CMC had given priority in utilising the funds earmarked for the welfare of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Differently Abled Persons for the construction of toilets.

The funds made available under the Swachh Bharat Mission were provided to eligible families. A total of 166 families had built toilets under all these schemes taken together in the city.

The CMC had constructed 56 community toilets with tin sheet roofing at workers colonies in the city. It had already identified places where it would build community toilets at a cost of Rs. 40 lakh in the next phase. Some landlords had given their land on rent to migrant workers to build their huts. These landlords had been directed to construct toilets for the migrant workers in their plots.

The CMC had also periodically undertaken awareness campaigns on bad effects of open defecation aimed at the people living in slums and workers colonies.

A team from Quality Control of India had visited the city some time back and conducted survey in this regard. The team had visited slums in Balram Nagar in Kola and New Colony in Kodankur. It had also checked the toilet facilities at Government School at Nittoor and Vivekananda Government School at Kinnimulki.