Sonepur: The district administration has set June as the deadline to completely do way with open defecation in the district.

Under the aegis of Swachh Bharat Abhijaan Sonepur district collector, Dasarathi Satapathy held a coordination meeting of various departments of the district to complete the task within the deadline. The collector has warned of stern action against officials who failed in their duty to make the mission successful. Satapathy asked the authorities concerned to submit the report on the status of the availability of latrines for students in primary schools and high schools by March 15.

"The school campus must be free from open defecation and the concern authority must submit a report about status of latrines in the schools to the administration, so that steps can be taken for construction of new latrines in the schools. Similar steps will be taken for anganwadi centres. The authority should update about the status of latrines at anganwadi centres of the district by March 15," Satapathy said.

The collector said that after getting the report, the headmasters of the schools and concern panchayat officials of the anganwadi centres would be given work orders with instructions to complete construction of latrines by April 15. "Action will be taken against those who would fail to comply with the order," he said.

The meeting was informed that under the Swachh Bharat Abhijaan over 1.35 lakh latrines would be constructed in the district out of which 77,986 had been done.

Sonepur block leads the list with 18,293 latrines followed by Birmaharajpur block with 15,132 latrines.

To accelerate the ongoing works nodal officers have been deputed at the block levels to supervise work of the projects. They will tour the blocks to supervise the work and report to the district collector.

Brown sugar

Excise staff on Wednesday carried out a raid at Sunahat village in Balasore district and seized 20gm of brown sugar and arrested a person. The market price of the seized brown sugar is Rs 2 lakh. The accused, Ali Hussain, 42, has been forwarded court.