Swachh Bharat Mission: Hailakandi District In Southern Assam Becomes Open Defecation Free

Hailakandi: The district of Hailakandi in southern Assam, under Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin), has become open defecation free (ODF), an official of the district administration said on Saturday. A total number of 84,614 individual household latrines (IHHLs) were constructed under the Swachh Bharat Mission(Gramin), on the basis of a baseline survey that was carried out in 2012, the Deputy Commissioner of Hailakandi, Adil Khan, said. The district has 62 village panchayats and 331 villages covered under five development blocks Hailakandi, Lala, Katlicherra, Algapur and South Hailakandi, Deputy Commissioner Khan said.

The total cost involved in attaining the target was around Rs 101 crore, the Deputy Commissioner added. “Having reached the feat, the district administration intends to focus more on the towns under the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) scheme. More than construction of toilets, we want to bring about behavioural change in the people, better sanitation and hygiene measures among residents,” he said. The deputy commissioner also congratulated the officials and employees of the public health engineering department (PHED) for their efforts in making the district ODF.

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“The SBM (Gramin) programme in Hailakandi district has been made possible due to the teamwork and coordination among the officials of the district administration and PHED, Hailakandi division,” Deputy Commissioner Khan said. He led the mission from the front, made whirlwind tours across the district, monitored and supervised the construction work of toilets and took feedback from people, the Executive Engineer of Public Health Engineering Department, Megha Das, said. “For the success of the mission, credit goes to our deputy commissioner, who is also the chairman of drinking water and sanitation committee,” Engineer Das said. Meanwhile, a proposal has been sent to Dispur for sanctioning of funds for repair work and renovation of some of the newly-constructed toilets that were damaged by the deluge that hit the district in June this year.

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NDTV – Dettol Banega Swachh India campaign lends support to the Government of India’s Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM). Helmed by Campaign Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan, the campaign aims to spread awareness about hygiene and sanitation, the importance of building toilets and making India open defecation free (ODF) by October 2019, a target set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when he launched Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in 2014. Over the years, the campaign has widened its scope to cover issues like air pollution, waste management, plastic ban, manual scavenging and menstrual hygiene. The campaign has also focused extensively on marine pollution, clean Ganga Project and rejuvenation of Yamuna, two of India’s major river bodies.