India blows up luxury high-rises over environmental violations

Yahoo – AFP, Abhaya SRIVASTAVA, January 11, 2020

India has seen a construction boom in recent years but developers have often
ridden roughshod over safety and other regulations (AFP Photo/Arun SANKAR)

Two luxury waterfront high-rises in southern India were reduced to rubble in controlled explosions Saturday in a rare example of authorities getting tough on builders who break environmental rules.

The 19-floor H2O Holy Faith complex of 90 flats -- overlooking Kerala state's famous lush backwaters -- was the first to go down, collapsing in just a matter of few seconds.

A thick grey cloud of dust and debris cascaded down after officials detonated explosives drilled into the walls of the building, which had been occupied for several years until the Supreme Court ruled last May that it was constructed in violation of coastal regulations.

Minutes later, the twin towers of Alfa Serene tumbled down with an ear-splitting noise. The remaining two complexes will be razed on Sunday.

A crowd of onlookers who flocked to nearby terraces and roads watched the demolition, after officials in helicopters conducted aerial surveys.

India has seen a construction boom in recent years but developers have often ridden roughshod over safety and other regulations, with the connivance of local officials.

The inhabitants of the apartment blocks in the well-off Maradu district of Kochi city had bought their 343 flats in good faith and now face a lengthy legal fight to recoup their money. Some had invested their life savings.

Sirens went off warning people gathered for the demolition to remain at a safe distance

while ambulances and fire engines stood on standby (AFP Photo/Arun SANKAR)

Sirens went off on Saturday warning people gathered for the demolition to remain at a safe distance while ambulances and fire engines stood on standby.

Ahead of the work, nearby residents told AFP they were worried about the impact of the demolition on their homes.

"When they were demolishing the swimming pool, some of the houses in our neighbourhood developed cracks, we are really worried," said Divya, who has moved into temporary accommodation.

Over 2,000 residents living in the neighbourhood were evacuated as a part of safety measures.

Scenic and fragile

The demolition capped a saga that began in 2006 when a local governing body granted permission to private builders to erect the high-rises.

But last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the builders were in breach of rules about construction in an ecologically sensitive coastal zone, calling it a "colossal loss" to the environment.

"It's a high-tide area and hundreds of illegal structures have come up in the coastal zone," the court ruled as it ordered the buildings razed.

The inhabitants of the razed apartment blocks in the well-off Maradu district of Kochi 

city had bought their 343 flats in good faith and now face a lengthy legal fight to 

recoup their money (AFP Photo/Arun SANKAR)

On Friday the court also ordered the demolition of a resort in neighbouring Alappuzha district after its owners lost the appeal of a 2013 ruling that said the structure violated environmental regulations and must be demolished.

Kerala is famed for its brackish lagoons and lakes that run parallel to the Arabian Sea -- creating an environmentally fragile region.

In 2018, the state was battered by its worst floods in almost a century that killed more than 400 people.

Experts blamed the disaster on the government's eagerness to build houses, hotels and resorts with little regard for coastal planning regulations.

The residents of the Maradu apartments initially refused to vacate but moved out after local authorities cut water and power supplies.

They have been given interim partial compensation by the state government while the builders are in the process of providing a refund.

Shamshudeen Karunagapally, who bought a flat for $145,000, said his wife and children did not watch the buildings go down as it was "too painful for them to see their dreams shatter before their eyes".

"We are suffering without any fault," he told AFP.

Water express delivers emergency supplies to drought-hit Indian city

France24 – AFP, 12 July 2019

The 50 wagons were filled with 2.5 million litres of water, destined for

Chennai (India) (AFP)

A special 50-wagon train carrying 2.5 million litres of water arrived in the Indian city of Chennai Friday, as the southern hub reels under one of its worst shortages in decades.

The wagons were hauled by a special locomotive, decorated with flowers and with a "Drinking Water for Chennai" banner on its front.

Four special trains a day have been called up to bring water to Chennai -- India's sixth most populous city -- from Vellore, some 80 miles (125 kilometres) away, to help battle the drought.

The first consignment will be taken to a water treatment centre, and then distributed in trucks to different parts of the metropolis on Saturday.

Chennai has seen only a fraction of the rain it usually receives during June and July.

The city of 4.9 million people also needed trains to bring water in when it suffered a similar crisis in 2001.

The bustling capital of Tamil Nadu state normally requires at least 825 million litres of water a day, but authorities are currently only able to supply 60 percent of that.

With temperatures regularly hitting 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), reservoirs have run dry and other water sources are dwindling further each day.

The Chennai metro has turned off its air conditioning, farmers have been forced to stop watering their crops, and offices have asked staff to work from home.

The city's economy has also taken a hit as some hotels and restaurants shut shop temporarily, and there have been reports of fights breaking out as people queue for water.

New machine aims to end India's sewer death shame

Yahoo – AFP, 19 November 2018

World Toilet Day is held on November 19 each year and is a campaign to raise
awareness of issues surrounding health and sanitation

Hundreds of "manual scavengers" die each year cleaning out sewers in cities across India but a machine unveiled for Monday's World Toilet Day could help to end that tragic record.

Thousands of mostly low-caste Indians are employed in one of the world's dirtiest jobs unclogging human waste from underground pipes.

More than 1,300 have died, mainly suffocated, in the past three years, according to the Sulabh International charity.

The men are called "manual scavengers" because they mainly scrape the waste with their bare hands without any protective gear or masks.

The machine launched by Sulabh injects high pressure water into the tunnels and tanks and then collects the waste with a mechanical bucket operated from ground level.

A remote control inspection camera generates high-resolution images of the sewer system.

Bindeshwar Pathak, the Sulabh International founder, said that forcing humans into the sewers was "demeaning".

"We hear so often the tragic news about sewer workers losing their lives," he said.

"This machine can safely clean the waste matter and it will gradually make manual scavenging redundant.

"With this machine we hope no person will die in the sewers any more."

Indian lawmakers have passed several laws aiming to stamp out the age-old practice of manual scavenging, the latest in 2013. But many scavengers are still used through subcontractors.

In rural areas, women "scavengers" clean out primitive non-flush toilets with basic tools, although the practice is now on the wane.

Pathak also unveiled a giant Indian-style toilet pot to raise awareness about sanitation in a country where some 150 million people do not have home toilets.

Three Dutch firms are sourcing granite from child labour quarries

DutchNews, August 23, 2017

Granite is widely used in luxury kitchens 

Three Dutch companies which import stone from abroad have bought granite from quarries in India where child labour is used, Trouw said on Wednesday. 

Some of the workers in the quarries are also vulnerable to debt slavery because of debts owed to their employer, according to a new report by three Dutch NGOs. The  NGOs base their claims on an investigation into working conditions and export data. 

The three firms supply granite for worktops for kitchen suppliers, window sills for the building industry and stone tiles for gardens, floors and bathrooms. All three say they are taking action to stop the abuse. 

India is the largest exporter of granite in the world. The researchers interviewed 172 employees at 22 quarries in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana. They found evidence of child labour at seven of the quarries and debt slavery at 19. In total, 22 western companies were found to have bought stone from a quarry using child labour. 

The paper also states that the Dutch stone importers association VNNI has withdrawn from talks within the government’s SER advisory group which was working on a covenant for the sector. The VNNI says that the process is too expensive and that the companies concerned import relatively little stone from India. 

According to the VNNI, debt slavery is also a bigger problem than child labour in the quarries. ‘The quarries are in remote areas and there is often no school nearby so parents take their children with them to the quarry,’ VNN’s treasurer Niels Ros told the paper. 

Indian woman wins divorce over lack of toilet

Yahoo – AFP, August 20, 2017

An Indian urinates on a wall in front of a poster in Hyderabad for the Hindi film
"Toilet", about one man's battle to build toilets in his village (AFP Photo/NOAH SEELAM)

Jaipur (India) (AFP) - An Indian court has given a woman permission to divorce her husband because their home did not have a toilet, forcing her to seek relief outdoors.

The family court in the northwestern state of Rajasthan ruled on Friday in favour of the woman, who argued that her husband's failure to provide an indoor toilet during their five years of marriage amounted to cruelty.

Justice Rajendra Kumar Sharma said women in villages often endured physical pain waiting until darkness to relieve themselves outdoors.

The judge labelled open defecation -- a major health problem in India -- disgraceful and deemed it torture to deny women a safe environment for relief, the woman's lawyer Rajesh Sharma told AFP.

Divorce is only granted in India if proof such as cruelty, violence or undue financial demands are shown in court.

It is not the first time a marriage has been called off over a toilet.

Last year a woman refused to tie the knot in Uttar Pradesh state after her fiancé refused to build a toilet for the couple.

In June another woman refused to return to the home of her in-laws until they constructed a toilet.

Nearly half of India's population -- almost 600 million people -- defecate in the open, according to UNICEF.

Some 70 percent of Indian households do not have toilets, although 90 percent have access to mobile phones.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised to build a toilet in every home by 2019 in a bid to stamp out open defecation.

The government says 20 million toilets have been constructed since the start of the scheme in 2014.

But experts say open defecation not only stems from poverty but a belief that toilets inside the home are unclean.

Lights finally come on for Indian village

Yahoo – AFP, Bhuvan Bagga, May 16, 2016

Government figures show that more than 300 million people in India still have
no access to electricity (AFP Photo/Money Sharma)

Anandpur (India) (AFP) - Ram Kishore searched long and hard to find a suitable wife for his son, but his efforts only paid off when electricity finally came to his village in rural north India this year.

It was not until the power pylons were installed as part of a government scheme to connect thousands of villages to the national grid that Kishore could persuade a prospective bride's parents to part with their daughter.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi took 

power after winning elections in May 2014

promising to make India "open for 

business" (AFP Photo)

Now he is all smiles as he sits under a glowing light bulb in his single-room home in Anandpur village. Just 145 miles (230 kilometres) from the capital New Delhi, it has never had electricity -- until now.

"I will personally invite my daughter-in-law's family to visit us and look at the electricity meter," the 60-year-old former labourer told AFP proudly after his house was connected.

Anandpur is just one beneficiary of an ambitious plan Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in his Independence Day speech last August to bring electricity to 18,452 Indian villages.

Government figures released last year showed that more than 300 million people in India -- the world's fastest-growing major economy -- still had no access to electricity.

Per-capital electricity consumption is barely one third of the global average.

Speaking from the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi, Modi said those villagers had been "deprived of the rays of development," promising to finish the job within 1,000 days and saying the country was "not ready to wait for 10 years".

It has not been an easy task.

Dinesh Arora, who runs the scheme for the power ministry, says the communities targeted are the "the toughest villages in most extreme corners of the country".

Indian villager Ram Kishore sits beneath a newly installed electricity meter at his

 home in the village of Anandpur in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh (AFP Photo/

Money Sharma)

Many cannot be reached by road or are in areas riven by violence.

Two of Arora's engineers were kidnapped and roughed up by Maoist guerrillas, while another team had to swim across a river to reach their destination.

Even once they reached the villages, some were given a hostile reception by residents suspicious of local governments that had given them little help in the past.

India's federal structure has added to the challenges, with electricity provision usually handled at the state level.

Each state has its own, often loss-making power providers, which are not always eager to extend provision to the poorest villages where revenues are unlikely to justify the cost.

Nonetheless, since Modi launched the scheme, over 7,700 villages have been connected to the grid.

'Everything will change'

As the main power line to Anandpur is switched on, the local men who had gathered excitedly round the visiting officials to watch the run screaming towards their mostly mud and brick houses yelling, "did it come?".

Anandpur village is just one beneficiary of an ambitious plan Indian Prime Minister

 Narendra Modi announced to bring electricity to 18,452 Indian villages (AFP 

Photo/Money Sharma)

"My husband has promised that we will now buy a fan and sleep peacefully at night, without mosquitoes," said Urmila Devi, who lived in a village with electricity before she married and has had to get used to kerosene lamps in Anandpur.

Each of the village's 120 residents has a different take -- some women are looking forward to being able to cook indoors even after dark, which has been impossible without electric lighting.

For young men like farm labourer Neeraj Singh, electricity means have a mobile phone that works.

"Having to use a solar cell to charge was time consuming and my phone battery would stay flat for days every month," he says.

For the children of the village, most of whom children cannot read or write and have never been to school, electricity means being able to carry on playing even after sunset.

"I had once watched television at my aunt's place and really enjoyed it," said Lakshmi.

"Now, I will ask my father to get us one."

Only 18 of the 25 households in Anandpur agreed to get connected and have the free electricity metre installed -- the other seven were unsure they could afford the monthly bill of between $1 and $2.

But 55-year-old Devi is certain that the arrival of electricity is a boon for her village.

"Everything will change now," she said.  

More than 20 killed as flyover collapses in Indian city

Yahoo – AFP, Sailendra Sil, March 31, 2016

The wreckage of a collapsed flyover in Kolkata, India, on March 31, 2016
 (AFP Photo/Dibyangshu Sarkar)

Hundreds of emergency workers in India battled Thursday night to rescue dozens of people still trapped after a flyover collapsed onto a busy street, killing at least 22 people and injuring nearly 100.

The flyover was under construction when a 100-metre (330-feet) section collapsed suddenly onto a crowded street in the eastern city of Kolkata around lunchtime, crushing pedestrians, cars and other vehicles under huge concrete slabs and metal.

"The death toll has risen to 22," Javed Ahmed Khan, disaster management minister for the state of West Bengal, told AFP.

Anil Shekhawat, a spokesman for the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), said seventeen survivers out of 92 rescued were still undergoing treatment at hospital.

Most suffered multiple fractures and were in a critical condition, Shekhawat added, saying that the death toll was expected to rise, with an unknown number of people still trapped under the wreckage.

Specialist rescue teams armed with concrete and metal cutters, drilling machines, sensors to detect life and sniffer dogs were sifting through the rubble.

India (AFP Photo)

Anurag Gupta, a spokesman for the National Disaster Management Authority, told AFP hundreds of rescuers would work through the night to rescue the trapped victims.

"Four hundred men from NDRF and 300 Indian army men along with hundreds of police and local officials are at the spot," Gupta said.

Authorities sealed off the accident site to members of the public, who in the initial hours were seen trying to pull away concrete slabs with their bare hands.

Workers struggled to get cranes and other large machinery through the narrow streets of Burrabazar, one of the oldest and most congested parts of the city, where locals desperately waited for news of missing loved ones.

"Everything is finished," screamed Parbati Mondal, whose fruit-seller husband had not been seen since the accident.

An injured builder told AFP at the scene that he had been working on the structure before it collapsed and had seen bolts come out of the metal girders.

"We were cementing two iron girders for the pillars, but the girders couldn't take the weight of the cement," said 30-year-old Milan Sheikh before being taken away to hospital.

"The bolts started coming out this morning and then the flyover came crashing down."

Construction on the two-kilometre-long flyover began in 2009 and was supposed to be completed within 18 months but has suffered a series of hold-ups.

The disaster is the latest in a string of deadly construction accidents in India, where enforcement of safety rules is weak and substandard materials are often used.

'Like a bomb blast'

Many locals said they were fleeing their houses for fear that more of the damaged structure could collapse.

"We heard a massive bang sound and our house shook violently. We thought it was an earthquake," 45-year-old resident Sunita Agarwal told AFP.

"We're leaving -- who knows what will happen next."

The disaster came just days before the World T20 cricket final, which is set to draw thousands of fans to the city this Sunday.

Television footage showed one bloodied body trapped under a concrete slab, and also the hand of a person sticking out from under twisted debris.

An eyewitness at the scene described a loud bang "like a bomb blast and suddenly there was a lot of smoke and dust".

A crane was seen lifting a mangled car from under the debris and part of a crushed bus was visible protruding from the rubble, although it was unclear if it had been carrying passengers.

K.P. Rao, a representative of the Indian construction company IVRCL, which was contracted to build the giant flyover, called the disaster an "act of God".

Their offices in Kolkata were sealed by investigators and police filed an initial charge of "culpable homicide not amounting to murder" against the company.

The firm was given an 18-month deadline and a budget of nearly $25 million to complete the project in 2009, but after seven years only about 55 percent of the work has been done.

In 2014 the company wrote to the city's development authority to say it was running out of funds to complete the project.

Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal of which Kolkata is the capital, told reporters those behind the disaster would "not be spared".

The accident comes as the West Bengal government is about to face state elections, with voting scheduled to start in early April and run until May.

Related Article:

Three people arrested in connection with deadly overpass accident in Kolkata

Kipling to Jinnah: Mumbai's crumbling colonial homes

Yahoo – AFP, Peter Hutchison, 19 February 2016

The "Kipling Bungalow" is one of several mansions in Mumbai, once associated 

with famous residents but now in ruin (AFP Photo/Indranil Mukherjee)

Mumbai (AFP) - Hidden behind a blanket of trees at the back of a university in Mumbai lies the dilapidated, but once grand, former home of writer Rudyard Kipling.

Fallen branches, discarded chairs and even empty whisky bottles surround the 19th-century building, while bird droppings mar a bust of Kipling, author of such beloved novels as "The Jungle Book" and "Kim".

"The bungalow is in very bad condition and needs desperate help," the college's principal, Rajiv Mishra, tells AFP.

"We feel cheated that such a beautiful monument has been neglected," he adds, pointing to a rotting wooden post, precariously supporting the historic property in south Mumbai.

The "Kipling Bungalow", as locals affectionately call it, is one of several mansions in the teeming Indian city, once associated with famous residents but now in ruin.

Nearby stands the former colonial home of Lord Harris, an ex-governor of then-named Bombay, widely credited with making cricket the most popular sport in India.

The 147-year-old Esplanade Mansion, formerly the resplendent Watson's Hotel, 

and frequented and written about by Mark Twain, is now a ramshackle shadow 

of its former glory (AFP Photo/Indranil Muherjee)

The gothic building housed school classrooms until four years ago, when pupils were moved out because the crumbling structure had become too weak and hazardous.

A few kilometres away in plush Malabar Hill sits the previously imposing residence of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan and its first governor-general.

The stately home hosted critical talks between Jinnah and India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru on partition of the subcontinent, but today its downtrodden appearance belies its historical significance.

Red tape

Heritage campaigners lament the demise of such buildings, blaming red tape and claiming politicians and developers are more concerned with constructing sparkly new luxury towers than preserving Mumbai's architectural history.

"The Kipling Bungalow is just a very sad reflection of bureaucratic hurdles... creating the death of a historic building," renowned architect Abha Narain Lambah, who specialises in conservation, told AFP.

An Indian mason stands on scaffolding at the under-renovation Lord Harris

Higher Secondary Marathi School in Mumbai (AFP Photo/Indranil Mukherjee)

The wood and stone structure, its green paint peeling, is situated on the grounds of an art school, whose first principal was John Lockwood Kipling, Rudyard's father.

Built in 1882, 17 years after Rudyard was born, the house was home to Lockwood Kipling and subsequent deans until the early 2000s, by which time it had sunk into such disrepair that it was rendered uninhabitable.

"We feel that Lockwood must have had Rudyard stay here and write so we call it the 'Kipling Bungalow'," explains Mishra, who wants the Maharashtra state government to restore it without delay.

He says officials plan to turn the building into a gallery exhibiting students' work and that of decorated artists, and have issued a tender for the contract.

The building has been caught in a tug-of-war between the college and the government for years over what its restoration should look like, but Mishra hopes renovations will finally start in around six months.

Maharashtra culture and education minister Vinod Tawde failed to respond to repeated AFP requests for comment on the issue.

Built in 1882, 17 years after Rudyard Kipling was born, the house was home to his 

father John Lockwood Kipling and subsequent deans until the early 2000s, by which

 time it had sunk into such disrepair that it was rendered uninhabitable (AFP Photo/

Indranil Mukherjee)

A short walk away, work has already begun on the former Mumbai residence of batsman and acclaimed cricket administrator George Harris, who was governor of the city from 1890-1895.

Harris captained England and during his tenure on the subcontinent "did much to lay down foundations for the expansion of the game in India", according to Cricinfo website.

A Mumbai inter-schools cricket tournament called the Harris Shield is testament to his legacy, but his former home was allowed to come close to collapse before long overdue maintenance work started.

The three-storey mansion, part of a public school, was out of use for three years until renovation began in June, and presently stands gutted, surrounded by bamboo scaffolding.

"It was basically falling apart and became too dangerous to be inside," the school's principal, Mohan Bhogade, told AFP.

Jinnah dispute

In arty Kala Ghoda district, a 147-year-old mansion, formerly the resplendent Watson's Hotel, frequented and written about by Mark Twain, is a ramshackle shadow of its former glory.

A bust of author Rudyard Kipling pictured at
the Kipling Bunglow -- the author's birthplace
-- inside the campus of the J.J. School of Art
in Mumbai  (AFP Photo/Indranil Mukherjee)

Now called Esplanade Mansion, it shows no signs of being restored despite ten years having passed since it was placed on a global list of endangered monuments by the New York-based World Monuments Fund.

Watson's, completed in 1869, is believed to be India's oldest caste-iron building and was the hotel of choice for colonialists and visiting dignatories during the British Raj.

Accoring to legend, the hotel went into decline after Indian industrialist Jamsetji Tata built Mumbai's iconic Taj Mahal Palace because he was denied entry to Watson's, which had a "Europeans-only" policy.

Today the crumbling structure houses a medley of dark cubbyhole offices. A lack of funds and arguments between tenants and city authorities have been cited as contributing to its descent into ruin.

"The idea of heritage has just evaporated," says Naresh Fernandes, author of "City Adrift: A Short Biography of Bombay".

Students gather under the porch at the Kipling Bunglow -- the birthplace of author 

Rudyard Kipling -- at the J.J. School of Art in Mumbai (AFP Photo/Indranil Mukherjee)

AFP contacted a number of officials at the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, regarding the Watson's Hotel and the Harris building, but none were available for comment.

Jinnah's house has been embroiled in a long-running legal dispute over ownership between his daughter, India and Pakistan. It lies empty in thick forest behind a padlocked gate.

Lambah doesn't believe the buildings owe their dilapidation to any sort of colonial antipathy, citing well-maintained British-era relics like the Bombay High Court and the former Victoria Terminus train station.

"It's just sheer neglect and bureaucracy," she says.

Beijing tasked with crap job of creating 'toilet revolution' in rural China

Want China Times, Xinhua 2015-07-18

Outhouses in Quzhou, Zhejiang province. (Internet photo)

Toilets in the Chinese countryside have earned a nasty reputation, with some little more than ramshackle shelters surrounded by bunches of cornstalk and others just open pits next to pigsties.

However, a toilet revolution is under way as the Chinese government scrambles to meet a UN health target requiring 75% of rural areas to have sanitary toilets by this year.

China's national standard require toilets in rural homes to have walls, roofs, doors and windows and to be at least two square meters in size. They may be flush toilets or dry toilets with underground storage tanks.

Provincial officials around the country said they have been urged to renovate sub-standard toilets and build new ones for farmers.

"Toilets seem like quite an insignificant thing, easily overlooked, but we find it to be an important and quite difficult task," Chen Xiaojin, deputy chief of the health department in eastern China's Jiangsu province, told Xinhua.

Currently, 94% of rural Jiangsu homes have these "sanitary" toilets. Chen said Jiangsu boasts the highest number of up-to-standard toilets in the country, thanks to persistent work in persuading and assisting rural residents to upgrade their facilities.

Sanitary toilets are a health priority for Jiangsu officials. The provincial health department publishes a ranking of cities each month based on their work to build new toilets. Officials who have slacked off risk being reprimanded.

According to the National Health and Family Planning Commission, a national figure on rural toilets will not be available until the end of the year. But the commission said China should have no problem meeting the UN target, as the 2014 figure had already reached 74%. China will set an additional national target of 85% for 2020.

"We must realize the period from now to 2020 is crucial. We are under a lot of pressure, and officials at every level must advance with the campaign," said Li Bin, head of the commission, at a national conference last December.

In Yongkang Village in central Jiangsu, villager Bu has just finished building a flush toilet.

"This kind of new, high-quality toilet is much better and cleaner with no smell," he said. His old one was a thatched space full of flies and maggots. "In the countryside, toilets used to be the dirtiest places. Now they have become the cleanest spots," he said.

HEAVY FUNDING

In Bu's village, each household received 800 yuan (about US$130) from the government to rebuild or renovate their toilets during the first half of 2015. The average home toilet upgrade costs about 3,000 yuan (about US$485), and the farmers must make up the costs not covered by the subsidies.

From 2004 to 2013, China's central government earmarked 8.27 billion yuan (US$1.33 billion) to build toilets in rural areas. Farmers who have agreed to build new toilets are eligible to receive the funds. The amounts vary from 150 yuan (US$24) in central and western China to 500 yuan (US$80) in the eastern and southern regions, where building materials are more expensive. Local governments with deeper pockets may also offer additional subsidies to villagers.

However, officials claim convincing rural residents to change their toilets is a challenge. "Most villagers are used to their way of using the toilet. It is hard to change," said Wang Zhigang, Communist Party secretary in Tanggou township in northern Jiangsu.

Farmers collect feces to be composted on their farmland. If they use flush toilets, no compost will be left behind. Dry toilets with tanks bring the extra task of regular cleaning.

"We had to build a few toilets first and take villagers to visit, and then encourage them to build new ones," he said. Slogans such as "sanitary toilets improve lives" are painted on walls of rural homes. TV stations are told to air videos promoting the use of better toilet facilities.

Fu Yanfen, a researcher at China Disease Prevention and Control, warned that about 80% of contagious diseases such as diarrhea and cholera in rural China are caused by contamination from toilets.

"The improvement of rural health has a profound impact on rural life and the rural economy. The local government must keep up with their work. We should continue to help the villagers in the repair, cleaning and maintenance of these facilities," Health Minister Li Bin said.

A renovated bathroom at Guilin Central Square, Guangxi, Feb. 26. (File photo/Xinhua)

Related Articles:

Toilets to be upgraded at tourist sites in China

'Toilet revolution' set to transform China's tourist sites

A cleaner at work at a toilet in Xujiahui Park in Shanghai, Oct. 21, 2014.

(File photo/Xinhua

Indian children asked to blow whistle on open defecation

This Man Is Modi's Best Chance To Make India Sanitary