Nearly 95 lakh toilets have been constructed in rural areas during the first year of the Swachh Bharat mission, Union Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh said as he emphasised on the need for innovative thinking to stop the old practice of open defecation.

Launching a coffee-table book on ‘sanitation champions’ from different parts of the country, the Union Minister of Rural Development, Panchayati Raj, Sanitation and Drinking Water said that many states were doing exceptionally well in setting up toilets in rural areas and they were likely to achieve targets in the next 1-2 years.

"The states of Chattisgarh, MP, Arunachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Sikkim, Manipur, Meghalaya have been at the forefront of the mission for construction of rural areas to stop open defecation," he said.

Nearly 95 lakh toilets, against the target of 60-65 lakh, have been constructed in the rural areas during the first year of the ‘Swachh Bharat’ mission, the Minister said.