Puducherry lt Governor Kiran Bedi on Saturday held back her direction to make clean villages a precondition for distribution of free rice after Opposition parties slammed the order.
Giving a backgrounder to her direction, Bedi cited poor sanitation condition in rural Puducherry during her visits and to make a turnaround, she directed linking rice distribution to good sanitation in villages.
DMK Working President M K Stalin, in a tweet, released a copy of her letter to Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy in which she apprised him that she has directed the Director of Civil Supplies in this regard.
Bedi, in her communique said to inculcate a sense of responsibiity amongst the local community, “we require to cast a duty upon the local community for maintenance of their localities clean and healthy.”
The rice distribution “shall therefore be made conditional to the certification that the village is open defecation free and free of strewn garbage and plastics,” she said.
“Accordingly, I have issued directions to the Director of Civil Supplies. A notice to the villages be given for a period of four weeks till 31 May to make the villages clean,” she said.
Bedi, in her letter dated on Saturday told the CM that she was writing to him to bring to his attention the poor sanitation condition in the rural pockets of the Union Territory, “which I was a witness to during my 155th week end visit to Mannadipet village.”
She said she was anguished to see the ‘slow pace’ of rural sanitation despite the efforts made to transform the villages into neat and clean village under swachh bharat mission.