Construct toilets for girls in schools: Narendra Modi tells MPs

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday asked all MPs to use their constituency funds for building separate toilets for girl students in schools within a year.

"There is one thing I want to begin today (Friday). There will be a separate toilet for girls in all schools so that our girl students do not run away. I want the MPs to use their funds to built toilets in schools," Modi said while delivering his maiden address on India's 68th Independence Day.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the occasion of the 68th Independence Day in New Delhi. Pic/AFP

He also called on the corporate sector to use their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for building toilets in schools.

"In one year we should be able to build toilets so that on Independence Day next year, we can proudly say all the schools in the country have toilets," added Modi.

He added that it should not be difficult for the country to build toilets so that old women and young girls in rural areas do not have to wait for darkness to ease themselves.

"We are in the 21st century. Have we ever been pained by the fact that even today our mothers and sisters have to defecate in the open. Dignity of women...isn't this is a responsibility of everyone? Women and sister wait for dusk. Until then they cannot relieve themselves. How much pain their body will be going through?...How many diseases they must be prone to? Can't we make provisions for a toilet for the dignity of our mothers and sisters," he said.

The Prime Minister said he is not hesitant about speaking about toilets in his speech from the Red Fort as the issue is related to the "respect" of poor.

"You would be thinking that from the Red Fort he is talking about cleanliness and toilets but I am speaking from the heart," he added.