Bhubaneswar, Aug. 28: The civic body has been asked to revise its present sanitation plan for the city after it failed to achieve the first set of target to make 25 slums in the city free from open defecation by August 15.

The directive came from the housing and urban development department, which says Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation officials should complete door-to-door survey of household latrines and prepare a ward-wise open defecation free plan by August 31.

"The municipal commissioner has been directed to form a special team to prepare a revised city sanitation plan keeping in view to achieve the open defecation free status by the stipulated time of March 2018," said a department official.

According to the directive, the civic body officials will also form a city sanitation task force to monitor the activities. The revised and final plan will then be uploaded on the Swachh Bharat Mission's official website. "Making the area free from open defecation is one of the important objectives of the mission. We have decided to put priority on the issue and take efforts to achieve the target on time," he said.

Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena said the earlier plan was focusing on safe disposal of faecal sludge since it had led to jaundice outbreak in the city last year. "We have formed a team to look after safe disposal of the faecal. In the next set, we will focus on the open defecation," said Jena.

In February, the civic body had fixed a target to make 25 major slums located in Bhubaneswar Town Centre Districts on Janpath free from open defecation by August 15. However, the civic body was able to achieve the target in only nine slums.

"Open defecation is a major problem for Bhubaneswar. It should be checked and controlled immediately. Slum dwellers, who are frequent in this practice, should be given facilities to end this," said social worker Alok Mohanty.

Engineer Dwaipayan Pattnaik said they were in the process of introducing community toilet facilities for the slum dwellers. "We are going to inaugurate 23 toilets on August 31, and we hope that the slum dwellers use these extensively," he said.