While Dharwad district may be an education hub and the cultural capital of North Karnataka, it doesn’t score very well on basic amenities. Many families in villages of Dharwad district don’t have toilets in their houses. Only 37% of families in rural places of the district have toilets in their houses. In the absence of toilets, people still use the open spaces as many community toilets are in a bad condition. This shocking information was revealed in a survey by the zilla panchayat to find out the number of toilets in individual houses in rural places. The survey found that only 73,000 families of 1.95 lakh families have toilets at home. PA Megannavar, CEO, zilla parishad, said, “After our survey, we decided to take up construction of toilets under the Nirmala Bharat Abhiyana in all villages and also to give some subsidy to both Above Poverty Line and Below Poverty Line families in villages to construct toilets in their house.” He added, “In the first phase, we sanctioned an action plan to construct 30,000 individual toilets in Dharwad taluk and work is under way to build 8,000 toilets. We’ll give a subsidy of Rs 9,200 to a BPL family and Rs 4,500 to an APL family to construct toilets at home.” Hesaid, “Ithasbeen decided to complete the construction of individual toilets in all villages by March 2014. We’ve also appointed cleaning messengers at the gram panchayat who will visit each house in the village to educate rural people about the importance of an individual toilet to maintain hygiene and to lead a healthy life.” “We have also given some attention to improve the condition of community toilets in villages so that rural peoplecan usethem insteadofusing open places to attend nature’s call. Once the construction of toilet is over, then each family will have its own toilet,” he added. Basappa Kambali of Narendra village,said, “Westill using the open ground in the village as a toilet. The zilla panchyat should expedite its works and also give subsidy without much delay to help villagers have their own toilet.”