Ministries to prepare two-year action plans for Swachh Bharat

PMO directs Ministries to prepare two-year action plans for Swachh Bharat implementation

All Ministries have been directed to prepare two year action plans for the implementation of the Swachh Bharat Mission by the Prime Minister’s Office. The Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation under the Ministry of Rural Development and the Ministry of Urban Development will be made responsible for monitoring the action plans' execution. Action plans have been prepared by all Ministries for financial years 2017-18 and 2018-19 in a bid to integrate sanitation as a core aspect of the central government’s functioning. Special sanitation drives have also been planned around prominent days such as World Water Day, World heritage Day and World Environment Day to create more awareness on the subject.

Uttar Pradesh's CM promises to make the state open defecation free by 2018

The Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath has announced the administration’s resolve to make the state completely free from open defecation by October 2018. This ambitious plan includes eliminating open defecation completely from 59,000 gram panchayats in the state. Meanwhile, government statistics and media reports suggest that districts represented by political leaders seem to fare poorly when it comes to reducing or eliminating open defecation with some of the poorest all-India rankings when it comes to the construction of household latrines. Most VIP districts have been found to have toilet coverage of less than 50 percent, forcing villagers to defecate out in the open.

Tiruchi Corporation to make segregation of wet and dry waste compulsory

In a bid to reduce its solid waste management burden, the Tiruchi Corporation has planned to make source segregation of garbage into bio and non-biodegradable wastes mandatory. From June 5th onwards, commercial establishments and residents will be penalised for failure to comply with the source segregation law. Non-biodegradable wastes will be collected from buildings once a week on Wednesdays. Establishments generating more than 20 kg of non-degradable waste a week are expected to hand them over directly to specific solid waste segregation centres in their wards. A penalty ranging between Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 will be levied on persons found dumping wastes in water bodies and vacant plots.

Jalandhar still a long way from being declared open defecation free

Given the slow progress, it appears that it will take at least a minimum of four more years for the Jalandhar Municipal Corporation to declare the city completely free from open defecation despite having declared 29 out of 60 wards as ODF. The Quality Council of India had declared 29 wards as being ODF this June following an inspection as part of the Swachh Surveskhan Survey. Construction of public toilets seem to be lagging with the city having just 14 public toilets in total for a population of nearly 11 lakh. It is worth mentioning that the city does not have even a single, functional community toilet complex.

Railway Minister bats for waterless train toilets

In a bid to address the serious issue of water shortage across the country, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu has called for the development of waterless toilets for adoption across the country. The Railways has set aside Rs 50 crore for research, development and promotion of waterless toilet technology. The Minister also expressed hope about installing bio-toilets in all train coaches over the next two years. So far, two routes have been declared ‘green rail corridors’ with zero open discharge as all trains plying the route have been fitted with bio-toilets.

This is a roundup of important sanitation related news published between April 22 and 28, 2016.