Chandigarh, Jan. 7 -- Days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to chief secretaries about the availability of girls' toilets in schools, the Centre has asked the state governments and Union territories to take immediate steps to ensure functional toilets for girls in all schools across the country.

In a letter to the chief secretaries of states and UTs last week, the Union ministry of education requested them to draw up and implement a suitable action plan to "saturate the availability of girls' toilets in all the girls and co-educational schools" before March 8, which is observed worldwide as International Women's Day.

According to the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) report for 2024-25, 97.3% of the...