Bhubaneswar: The housing and urban development department has adopted a tough stance on the municipal corporation for its repeated failure in achieving open-defecation-free status for the state capital and asked the officials concerned to take appropriate steps now or face action.

The department, while reviewing the status of different components under the Swachh Bharat Mission, observed that none of the five municipal corporations of state, including the one in Bhubaneswar, got any success in achieving the open-defecation-free status, one of the critical components of the mission.

Following repeated failures, the department has written to the municipal commissioners to take appropriate steps to achieve the status latest by October 2 this year. Sources said the government was planning to take action against the civic body in the form of cutting the funds under the mission if the failure reoccurs.

"There is no reason as why you cannot achieve open-defecation-free status for your urban local body with more focused efforts and determination. I would like to request you to take proactive steps on priority basis to ensure declaring your urban local body as 100 per cent open defecation free by October 2, 2018, unfailingly," wrote department secretary G. Mathi Vathanan to the municipal commissioners.

"So far the civic authorities of Banki, Nayagarh and Deogarh have succeeded in making their locality free from open defecation while the performance of other urban local bodies including the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation is far from satisfactory. Open-defecation-free status is most important for a smart city and there has to be such effort," said an official of the department.

The civic body first set a deadline of declaring 25 slums of the city free from open defecation by April 1 last year, but it failed and the deadline was extended to October 2 the same year. It was further pushed back to May 31. However, so far only 17 slums have been declared free from open defecation.

"We did undertaken a number of activities, made people aware of the ills of defecating in the open, construct household latrines for them, but they continue their practice. We need to be stricter this time to stop them from this practice. We will penalise those found violating the norms," said a civic body official. He attributed the failure to the mindset of the slum-dwellers. "We underperformed in the recently concluded Swachh Survekshan just because we fail to declare the city free from open defecation. We are providing the facilities but it is the people who need to change their mindset," he said.