A study conducted by the Drinking Water and Sanitation Division Office has found that 23 percent of the households in Kavre that used toilets before the earthquake of April 25, 2015, are now practicing open defecation.

Of the 80,720 households in the district, 8,664 of them did not have toilets from the beginning. Post earthquake, of the 72,056 toilet-using households, 17,749 have been left without toilets.

This is a setback for the district that has set a goal of becoming open defecation-free by 2017. 

Ramkaji Kafle, of DWSDO, said though many quake victims are using pit latrines covered with plastic sheets, they cannot be considered proper latrines.

If the toilet’s structure is not solid, like the ones made of bricks and concrete, they do not get open defecation-free status, he added. So far, 27 VDCs in Kavre have been declared open defecation-free.