Kerala to become open defecation free State soon
Under the Centre's Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, which aims at ensuring a toilet for every family (to make the state Open Defecation Free - ODF)in the country. All the States have taken up this scheme and their progresses are at different levels. Those States which achieve the target will be declared as 'Nirmal State'. So far only Sikkim has achieved this status.In Kerala out of the 978 grama panchayats 959 had declared as Nirmal gram themselves by providing each family at least one toilet. The remaining 19 grama panchayats are going ahead to become open defecation free panchayats. Once that is also completed Kerala will be the first major (population-wise) State to become Nirmal State. The target date is the coming New year day.