KATHMANDU: The government has planned to speed up the construction of public toilets to move towards full sanitation. The plan has come at a time when Nepal was declared an open defecation free country.

Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation in collaboration with state governments and local governments has devised a plan to increase public toilets, informed Ritesh Kumar Shakya, spokesperson at the ministry.

In a bid to enable sanitation, the federal and state governments will collaborate for toilet construction though it is the local government's responsibility to operate public toilets, he added.

The government is mulling the options whether to construct the public toilets on its own or to hand over the responsibility to the private sector and carry out monitoring roles, he said. "Whoever takes the responsibility and whatever modality is adopted, the monitoring part should be strong," Shakya noted.

It may be noted that the government had declared Nepal an open defecation free country on September 30 last year.