Panchayat secretaries will take it up from today Taking a step towards eradication of open defecation in the State by 2015, the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) is undertaking a baseline survey on the sanitation status in villages in the district. The survey will be taken up from March 20 to April 15. Chief Minister’s vision Keeping in line with the Chief Minister’s vision of total eradication of open defecation in Tamil Nadu by 2015, which was outlined at the conference of the District Collectors, the survey aims to gauge the actual sanitation condition in the villages. For total eradication of open defecation, it is imperative that each and every house in a village should have toilets by 2015, DRDA officials said. “There should be individual toilets in every house in all villages and the baseline survey is vital as it will reveal the present status of sanitation in villages. Based on the survey, we will prepare the proposal for the project,” an official said. The number of toilets available in a village and toilets required will be known in the baseline survey. The survey would also help in finding out the reasons for open defecation despite the availability of toilets in a particular village. Lack of usage The reasons for lack of usage of the toilets would also be looked at, the official said. The data collected in the survey would also provide additional information such as number of physically challenged persons in the villages, details of families in which women are the bread winners, water facilities available in households and the nearest water facility outside of the house, and a count on the small and marginal farmers in the village. Training programmes “The panchayat secretaries will be the enumerators for the survey. Once the data is collected, it would be fed online,” he said. A district-level meeting in this regard was held on March 14 which was followed by a training programme on enumeration for panchayat secretaries at the block-level on March 18, an official release said. During the baseline survey on family-wise sanitation status, the enumerators would take up house-to-house survey and obtain general details on the household, information about family, water facilities in the house and public places and usage of toilets. Appeal for cooperation In the release, the district collector asked the public to extend full cooperation for the officials during the enumeration process and provide accurate details for the survey. The public have been asked to ensure that their households are not missed in the survey. Number of toilets available in a village and toilets required will be known in the survey Enumerators will take up house-to-house survey and obtain details on the household facilities