Berhampur, Feb. 25: Villagers of Kandigaon under Kanheipur panchayat in Ganjam have set an example at a time when other administrations are struggling to make their districts free of open-defecation.

The village committee has imposed fines on open-defecation in an effort to maintain sanitation at the village in keeping with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pet Swachh Bharat Mission. The committee has already collected Rs 9,060 as fines from 60 villagers in the past four months.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appealed to the nation to maintain cleanliness under the Swachh Bharat Mission, and we are trying our best to maintain rural sanitation," said village committee president Rabindra Nayak.

The village consists of 193 households. Village sarpanch Ram Chandra Sethi said that out of the 193 households, 123 had latrines.

However, the committee requested all the villagers to construct toilets in their houses and not defecate in the open. The committee has unanimously decided to collect a fine of Rs 151 from every one who breaks the rule.

"The district administration has sanctioned work orders for 52 households and the process to cover the remaining 18 households is expected to end by March 15," Sethi said.

"We have even put up posters at the village to caution the public and termed open-defecation as punishable," Nayak said.

The committee also selected volunteers to motivate the villagers to build toilets. The volunteers are spreading awareness about the usefulness of using toilets among the residents as well.

" Mo swacha sauchalaya means my clean toilet. The idea is to build toilets by actively involving the community and concentrating on behavioural change aspects of the people towards sanitation," he said.

The Odisha government aims to become an open-defecation free state by December 2017. It has asked all the collectors to adopt the community-led total sanitation approach with the participation of volunteers, village communities, self-help groups and individual beneficiaries in carrying the campaign forward. Under the rural sanitation campaign, the state government has fixed construction of 20 lakh toilets, official sources said.

According to the Baseline Survey Report-2012 of the Swachh Bharat Mission under the aegis of the ministry of drinking water and sanitation, the percentage of households without toilets in Odisha is an alarming 88 per cent, sources said.