Sixty-six lakh villages in India open defecation free says Murugan hails PM for cleanliness drive

Bhopal, Oct 26 (PTI) Union Minister L Murugan on Saturday said 66 lakh villages in India have become open defecation free (ODF).
Hailing Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said the cleanliness drive launched across the country in 2014 has made tremendous impact and "today people hesitate to even throw a piece of paper around".
The Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting and Parliamentary Affairs was addressing a one-day media workshop titled 'Vartalaap' hosted by Press Information Bureau (PIB) in collaboration with Bhopal Municipal Corporation on the theme 'A decade of cleanliness, special initiative for clean Bhopal'.
"Around 66 lakh villages have become open defecation free in India. Before 2014, there were few toilets. Fifty percent people did not have toilets. With the construction of more than 11.5 crore toilets, India has come a long way in the 10 years since the launch of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan," he asserted.
The Union minister also said files that were lying in government offices for the past 40 years were disposed of.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)