Government today said more than one third of the villages in the country have been declared open defecation free (ODF). Of the total six lakh five thousand eight hundred, over two lakh villages spread over 139 districts have become open defecation free. A total of 300 districts are targeted to be made ODF by December 2017.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi today on the achievements of his Ministry during the last three years, Rural Development Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said maximum number of 26 ODF districts are in Gujarat.

Only one district of Uttar Pradesh – Shamli – has been declared ODF.
The government, he said has started construction of all-weather roads in 44 worst affected Left Wing Extremists, LWE districts in nine states. These roads will be constructed with an estimated cost of around 12 thousand crore rupees and will be completed by March 2020. 
Tomar said Rural Self Employment Training Institute trained four lakh rural youth in the last financial year for self employment and has proposed to train five lakh candidates with an assured placement of over 70 per cent of them in the current year.
Earlier, Minister of State for Rural Development Ram Kripal Yadav said the government has set a target of building one crore houses in rural areas by 2019. He said, one hundred per cent Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) will be ensured under Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana to bring in transparency and remove leakage. He said, rural development expenditure has been raised by 62 per cent from 58 thousand 630 crore rupees in 2013-14 to 95 thousand 99 crore in 2016-17.
Yadav said, under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, road construction has reached a record pace of 130 kilometers per day. The Minister said, MGNREGA has been transformed with highest ever expenditure during 2016-17 and several new governance initiatives have been taken to ensure growth, accountability and transparency.
He said 96 percent of the wage payments are electronically credited into the accounts of workers through Director Benefit Transfer System. The Minister said, job card verification and updation was taken on a priority basis during the last financial year and more than one crore job cards have been deleted.