Seven cities – all in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh – have been certified ODF++, according to the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban.

The certification, an extension of the ODF or Open Defecation Free protocol, means that all the faecal sludge and sewage in these cities is treated scientifically before discharge.

“The seven cities are Indore, Khargone, Sahaganj, Ujjain, Bhilai, Rajnandgaon and Ambikapur,” said SBM-U mission director V.K. Jindal.

“These cities have 100% of their faecal matter treated by sewage treatment plants or faecal sludge treatment plants. They are also free of open defecation and open urination, with at least 25% of the community and public toilets in excellent condition.”

These are the first cities to qualify under the government’s new extended protocol to sustain gains made under the basic ODF protocol, he stated. 12 other cities are being assessed, while 533 cities have applied for the certification.

Annual survey

He was speaking on the sidelines of the launch of Swachh Survekshan 2019, the Mission’s annual cleanliness survey which will rank 4237 cities and towns on their sanitation efforts on the basis of third-party surveys as well as citizen feedback.

The Urban Affairs Ministry is setting up a sub-mission on faecal sludge management under its AMRUT scheme for 500 cities and towns, said Secretary Durga Shanker Mishra.

Members of four Opposition parties — the Congress, Trinamool Congress, Samajwadi Party and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) — have moved a dissent note against the report of the joint committee on Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016.

The bill proposes to give citizenship to six persecuted minorities — Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Parsis, Christians and Buddhists — from Pakistan. The Opposition members have been demanding that the bill should be made “religion and country neutral”. The members from Assam have also been opposing it because the legislation it would pave the way for giving citizenship, mostly to illegal Hindu migrants from Bangladesh in Assam who came after March 1971, in violation of the agreement of the Assam Accord, 1985.

In a stormy meeting on Thursday, the Opposition members demanded more time for deliberations but chairman and BJP MP Rajendra Agarwal rejected the demands. The committee has cleared the bill, according to sources, without any major cuts in its original structure.

The bill, Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary said, is against the very basic fibre of the Indian society. “We stand for secularism and the bill is just against the most basic value of our society,” he said. Three dissent notes are expected from Congress alone.

Samajwadi Party MP Javed Ali also gave in his dissent note. Speaking to The Hindu he said, “The bill is ill-intentioned. It has been brought about by the BJP to showcase that India is a Hindu Rashtra”.

The committee chairman said that notwithstanding the dissent notes, the report will be tabled on January 7. “Every member has the right to give dissent notes. We tried our best to build a consensus but it is a complex issue and there were divergent views. All the clauses of the bill were voted upon and adopted by the majority nod,” Mr. Agarwal said.

Some members claimed that the committee had three meetings in last ten days and the Chairman was under pressure to finalise the report at the earliest. Mr. Agarwal rejected this claim. “We did not work under any pressure. We have to realise this is the last opportunity for the committee to table its report and we can no longer ask for extension,” he added.