What Is The Full Form Of ODF? Read To Find Out!

The abbreviation ODF stands for Open Defecation Free, which refers to the cessation of the practice of defecation in open spaces. This is a program that the state must commit to in order to eradicate open defecation. Those who practice open defecation use areas such as fields, bushes, forests, roads, canals and other open spaces for the purpose, even if they have a toilet in their home. Visible faeces in the environment can cause various infections, so to ensure long-term success of the ODF program, households, public and municipal institutions must use safe technological solutions to dispose of faeces.

On October 2nd, 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi started a large-scale sanitation campaign called the "Swacch Bharat Abhiyan" which included the concept of ODF, which stands for Open Defecation Free. This mission is meant to achieve cleanliness throughout India by stopping people from practicing open defecation. The guidelines for this campaign provided instructions for both rural and urban areas, with the goal of making sure that feces does not contaminate the soil, water, and air, while also ensuring that people do not have to experience or smell any visible waste in their environment.

The Indian Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation and its policies for maintaining Open Defecation Free (ODF) sustainability.

The village wishing to be officially recognized as Open Defecation Free (ODF) should resolve all problems related to defecation and inform the government of its declaration. This self-declaration will be made by the village's Nigrani Samiti, and after a lengthy process of inspection and verification by government officials, which takes around nine months, the village will be declared ODF.

Once an occurrence of open defecation is identified, the District Magistrate (DM) or leader of the District Sanitation Committee (DSC) proclaims the village as ODF and posts it on the SBM dashboard. After assessment, the team from the Commissioner's level of the SBM Directorate at the state level will then declare the village an ODF. The team is assessing the DM's proposition, which acquire physical confirmation that the village is indulging in open defecation to check if it can be verfied and acknowledged with ODF status. Cross-examines the ODF status of the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, the State Directorate for SBM, and SBM carry out random surveys of villages through third parties.

Status of ODF sustainability implementation

In 2018, the Ministry put out an announcement outlining the objectives, plans, different projects, analysis and reporting of the mission. The report also mentioned the different financial sources to sustain the ODF, such as funding from the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation and the State government, MPLAD/MLALAD Funds, funds from the 14th Finance Commission, resources from development partners, credit facilities from banks, and a revolving loan.

ODF Sustainability Pushtika Key aspects

1. Utilizing toilets, dealing with solid and liquid waste, and keeping things clean.
2. Challenges that have to be addressed in order to be successful and field personnel who are responsible for overcoming these obstacles.
3. Areas to focus on in order to ensure lasting impact on the field.
4. Making changes to existing home toilets to improve their usefulness: constructing two leach pits instead of one, as well as a junction chamber to connect the toilet to these pits; not needing vent pipes for toilets with twin pits; building a junction chamber for toilets with none; and connecting the septic tank discharge to the leach pit.

Statistics and reality of the ODF Sustainability plan

The ministry survey revealed that 6,03,006 villages have been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF), and 6,01,780 of these have been verified. Of these, 2,62,771 are ODF gram panchayats, 6,972 are ODF blocks, 711 are ODF districts, and 35 are ODF states/union territories. Since October 2014, 10,82,35,426 toilets have been built throughout the country. Sikkim was declared the first ODF-S state, with Himachal Pradesh second and Kerala third.