1,137 cities to become ODF by Oct 2

NEW DELHI: The Centre is considering an ambitious plan to make PM Narendra Modi’s constituency, Varanasi, a “clean electricity city” where only renewable energy would be used.The proposal is being considered with power minister Piyush Goyal mooting the idea after visiting Munich in Germany, where the city authorities have targeted 100% clean electricity supply by 2025. Sources said this came up for brief discussion on Tuesday when urban development secretary Durga Shankar Mishra was taking a review meeting on the ongoing ministry initiatives in Varanasi.Officials said the renewable energy ministry will hold the first round of meeting on the issue on Thursday. “The focus will be on assessing the electricity demand of the city and how much clean electricity can be made available there. We will prepare a blue-print after consulting all the stakeholders,” a government official said.Sources said for the first preparatory meeting, the Centre has called officials from power department of Uttar Pradesh. “There is little scope for generating wind energy in the city. We will explore all options,” one of the officials privy to the development said.In its bid to push the initiative, the urban development secretary will hold a review meeting later this week in the holy city. Officials said the focus will be to complete ongoing works fast to bring visible change considering the focus of PM to improve quality of life.All the 1,137 statutory cities and towns in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Kerala and Telangana are set to be declared open defecation free (ODF) by October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.Urban development ministry officials it has been getting regular reports from the states. Already 281 cities in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Chandigarh have been declared as ODF. These nine states account for 39% of the total 4,041 mission cities.