GUWAHATI, July 11 - Community mobilisation would be an important aspect in the implementation of the Swachh Bharat Mission in all the gaon panchayats under Kamrup Metro district. The Centre for Environment Education (CEE), which has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Public Health Engineering (PHE), is going to involve all communities under the ambitious project to ensure a clean and hygienic ambience.
As part of its strategy to mobilise communities, the CEE will target families of 21 gaon panchayats under Kamrup Metro and will do a mapping of these GPs and prepare a list of families that have no access to proper toilets.
It needs to be mentioned that out of the 22 gaon panchayats under Kamrup Metro, one has been declared as ODF, or open defecation free.
�Now, our foremost step will be to conduct a survey of the 21 gaon panchayats and we will involve the panchayat members in our mission so that all the GPs achieve the target,� said Simanta Kalita, a functionary of the CEE.
Kalita added that there are some families, which, despite having toilets, are not making use of them. The CEE, after identifying the families GP-wise that do not have access to toilets will hang the list in the panchayat offices.
Kalita said that an awareness programme will also be launched so that all the citizens realise the importance of keeping their environment clean.
�During our earlier visits to some gaon panchayats, we found that some families were using the toilets for storing grain or as a poultry house, because the toilet is the only pucca structure in their respective yards,� said Kalita, observing that it would take a lot of effort to motivate this segment of the population, which is economically weak.
The CEE, according to Kalita, will particularly focus on this section and will try to convince these people that they will gain by using a sanitary toilet as that will help them in staying fit and healthy.
�Most of the diseases in the rural areas are water-borne. We will convince the people to use sanitary stoilet so that they are not exposed to any health hazards and thus their money is saved,� Kalita said.
The volunteers for all the awareness programmes will be selected from the communities.
