Birgunj Metropolitan City has extended the deadline to declare the city an ‘open defecation free zone’ to June 30, 2019.

A campaign to turn the city into an ‘Open Defecation Free Area’ was launched five years ago with a target to construct toilets in all city households by 2018.
Only 73 percent houses in the then Birgunj Sub-Metropolitan City had toilets until 2014.
“Half-a-dozen wards in the metropolitan city remain to be declared open defecation free zones,” said Sunil Kumar Karna, the focal person of the Drinking Water and Sanitation Section of Birgunj Metropolitan Office. According to him, the construction of toilets in 500 to 600 houses is still pending.
There are a total of 39,123 households in the metropolis; among them, more than 700 households in Chhapkaiya, Bhediyahi, Bindabasini, Ramgadwa, Sirsiya, and Udayapur settlements do not have toilets, authorities say.
According to Karna, a lack of construction materials has delayed the construction of toilets in the metropolis.However, the metropolitan office, in coordination with the Drinking Water and Sanitation Division Office, plans to distribute toilet pans to around 500 households.