Rural Sanitation Campaign In Odisha Gathers Momentum

Bhubaneswar: The rural Sanitation campaign under Swachh Bharat Mission has gathered momentum in Odisha with  individual household latrine (IHHL) coverage growing by 44 per cent over the last three years.

This was revealed at a high-level review meeting, chaired  by chief secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi and Union secretary, drinking water and sanitation, Parameswaran Iyer, at state secretariat here on Wednesday.

The review showed that IHHL coverage in rural areas of Odisha by January-end this year has gone up to 56 per cent against 12 per cent coverage going by baseline survey conducted in October, 2014.

The chief secretary directed all district collectors to scale up their coverage to at least 65 per cent by March.

He said toilets being constructed with PAMY(G) houses be funded from MGNREGS.

Principal secretary, panchayati raj and drinking water, Deoranjan Kumar Singh advised the collectors to utilize the same manpower deployed for implementation of rural housing. The strategy of implementation should be same as construction and completion of the dwelling houses, he pointed out.

Around 7715 villages in 30 districts of the state have been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF). Union Secretary Iyer advised to complete ODF status verification of these villages within three months from the day of ODF declaration and upload the results on the website.

The chief secretary advised officers to focus on behavior change of the people and sustainability of the campaign while Singh asked the collectors to engage at least 4 swachhagrahis in each panchayat to carry forward the campaign and sustain ODF status.

Official sources aid after validation of the base line survey through a  rigorous method of scrutiny, target has been set to cover around 82.34 lakh households under IHHL scheme. Out of that more than 46.18 lakh of HHs have been covered by January-end, 2018.

In Odisha, Deogarh has already been declared ODF district. A target has been set to make 5 more districts (Jharsuguda, Balasore, Gajapati, Sambalpur and Sonepur) ODF in different phases by June-end, 2018.