Ranchi The State Government aims to cover 14.4 lakh households under the Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) in the fiscal year 2016-17. The department of Drinking Water and Sanitation in partnership with UNICEF Jharkhand has launched a nine days state wide campaign to cover 2234 panchayats in 124 blocks across the state.
“The cleanliness drive will boost in targeted panchayats to correct baseline, quality construction of toilets and promote self construction. The department expects to get around four lakh applications during the drive for self-construction,” said, Principal Secretary, Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, AP Singh.
The campaign will encourage people residing in rural pockets to take up self-construction of household toilets. A State Resource Team (SRT) has been formed for monitoring the district wise activities. The members will gather information based on extensive field visits chronologically. UNICEF is providing technical assistance in the training all the SRT.
Chief of UNICEF Jharkhand, Dr. Madhulika Jonathan, said, “Self-construction of toilets will give a momentum to Swacch Bharat Mission in rural areas. It is important from the community ownership and quality perspective. UNICEF is lending support to the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation in tribal dominated districts of lohardaga, Simdega and Gumla to ensure equity in ensuring sanitation.”
In every district the nodal officer which includes ADM or SDO or counterpart will gather information from all the panchayats on daily basis.
Households without toilet will immediately be given approval for self- construction of toilet in their house within 15 days. They will be entitled to an incentive of Rs. 12,000 paid through RTGS/cheque within a week time of completion of toilet construction. The executive engineer will be the responsible person for the transfer of incentive amount to beneficiary.
Based on the verification done by the panchayat team, a list of households missed in the base line survey record and incapable of constructing toilets in their homes will be prepared. A separate list of households capable of constructing toilets on their own will also be prepared. The applicants who could not join the camp earlier can submit their application on August 17.