Kiran Bedi withdrew the order”No Toilets, No Rice”
NEW DELHI : Puducherry Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi on Saturday suspended an order that said the union territory’s poorest families entitled to free rice will not get the grains from next month-end unless they can produce a certificate that their village is open defecation free and cleaned up after the move triggered sharp attacks from the Congress that called it “dictatorial”.
The Congress says it is dictatorial and asked PM Narendra Modi to explain if it had his approval.”Has Modiji told Kiran Bedi to do this? Does Modiji know what Kiran Bedi is doing?… Ordering officials that let people die of hunger but don’t given them ration,” asked Congress leader Pawan Khera.
Facing mounting criticism, Ms Bedi withdrew the order for now later in the evening. “To avoid misreading of this intention and in view of the forthcoming commitment made by the UT Government that villages in Puducherry will achieve ODF by June end, I am happy to give them some more time. Therefore I am withholding my earlier communications.”
The controversial order came months after a UN sanitation expert Leo Heller had taken a dim view of such attempts to arm-twist people, saying the Swachh Bharat mission’s “open defecation free” programme should not be “human rights free”.
Ms Bedi told the administration that community leaders in rural areas were vociferous and proactive to seek better facilities from the government but did not show the same enthusiasm for the sanitation campaigns under the Swachh Bharat programme.
“If you want dialysis machine (at local state-run hospital), clean up your village. You want free rice, clean up your village… Men, women children, everyone clean up your village. “(You have) one month’s time. It will be given to you only on the condition that the village is clean,” Ms Bedi said.ndtv.
