New Delhi: On the second anniversary of the Swachh Bharat Mission, the government on Sunday named Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh as the first states to have become open defecation free (ODF) in urban areas.

In rural areas, approximately 100,000 villages have also been declared ODF since the launch of the mission in 2014.

In all, 180 and 110 cities and towns, respectively, in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh were declared open defecation free by their chief ministers.

The Swachh Bharat Mission, a pet project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was launched on 2 October 2014 to make India clean and open defecation free by 2019, Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary.

“It’s a matter of joy that Porbandar district, where Bapu (Mahatma Gandhi) was born has become open defecation-free today. Kudos to all those who made this happen," Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted on Sunday.

A total of 405 out of the 4,041 cities and towns have so far claimed to have become open defecation free.

The government has set a target of making 334 more cities open defecation free by March next year.

According to official figures, in urban areas, with three years to go, the mission has managed to construct 36% of individual toilets, 30% community toilets and 9% public toilets.

Officials say that the mission has picked up momentum after increased people’s participation.

“The mood of developing India being strongly for sanitation, Swachh Bharat Mission is becoming a people’s movement and Swachh Bharat will be realized, with people leading the grand India sanitation alliance of all stakeholders," urban development minister M. Venkaiah Naidu said.

In rural India, while Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala have achieved more than 90% of toilet construction in households, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir and Odisha are still trailing with fewer than 30% of households with toilets.

“Today, I am very happy to announce that 100,000 villages, 3,000 gram panchayats and more than 170 cities have been declared open defecation-free. If someone is defecating in the open, then people are embarrassing them by giving them roses. This has now become a people’s movement," Narendra Singh Tomar, minister for drinking water and sanitation said while addressing the audience at an event in Gujarat.

Gujarat, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Mizoram are likely to achieve open defecation-free status for all rural areas by 31 March 2017, while Maharashtra, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Mizoram and other north-eastern states are to declare all urban areas as open defecation free soon. To increase public interest in the mission, the government has roped in film actor Amitabh Bachchan and cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar to promote toilet use. They have also undertaken city surveys to instil a sense of competition among cities.

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