HYDERABAD: In a remarkable achievement, Telangana’s own Peddapalli was recently adjudged the cleanest district in the country. But what exactly catapulted the district to the top of the list? District Collector A Sri Devasena, during an interaction with TNIE as part of Express Chat here on Friday, said that a combination of various initiatives made the feat possible — one of the most important being the decision to identify spots in and around villages that are frequented by people, and construct community toilets in the area.
“Peddapalli district was declared open defecation free. We had built toilets for every household. Despite this, during my visits to different parts of the district, I caught people urinating or even defecating out in the open,” the collector said. When these people were confronted, they apparently pointed out that they were forced to use the open spaces, as they had no other option while working away from home or travelling. In order to tackle this issue, the district administration then undertook the construction of community toilets in all villages. Sri Devasena said that she had instructed the sarpanches of all 263 villages in her district to find suitable locations for community toilets. With the State government’s new Panchayat Raj Act in force, the sarpanches can be penalised if the orders are not heeded to. Hence, it did not take long for all the sarpanches to conduct gram sabhas in their respective villages, decide the locations, undertake the work and complete the construction of community toilets.
The money came from the District Mineral Foundation trust, and the CSR funds tapped from various corporate entities functioning in the district, she stated. Devasena also pointed out that the ‘Swachhagrahis’ also played an important role in achieving the recognition. These are women who have been tasked with creating awareness on the importance of using toilets.
Zero-waste villages
Peddapalli Collector Sri Devasena is now vying towards the creation of ‘zero waste villages’. With dry-waste management mechanism already in place, the collector is working to streamline wet waste management through compost pits. “We plan to promote kitchen gardens in a big way. The idea is that there shall be no generation of waste from any household. We will provide compost pits under MNREGS to all houses,” she said. Since the cost of the construction of a compost pit is high, the collector is looking at an alternative way to create pits. “This way, we will have a no-waste village, which is our end goal,” she added
Achievements galore
Raghavpur, Manthani and Mallaram gram panchayats of Peddapalli have won national awards — Deendayal Upadhyay Panchayat Sashaktikaran Puraskar and Nanaji Deshmukh Gaurav Gram Sabha Puraskar — under general and sanitation categories. The district also ranked first among south-Indian States and third at the national level in the Swachh Survekshan Grameen-2018, and the Swachh Sundar Shauchalay Award under the Swachh Bharat Mission
Fruit trees to curb monkey menace
The marauding monkey community has been a major problem in Peddapalli for long. In order to tackle the issue, the district administration has now decided to ‘bribe’ the mischief-makers away. According to Collector Devasena, the administration has 400 acres of land across all villages of the district, in varying areas ranging from half to 15 acres. In these areas, the officials will plant fruit-bearing trees that will attract the monkeys away from human habitations, said the collector. The State government provided a list of 15 fruit-bearing trees preferred by monkeys, and 60 per cent of the plantation has already been completed, she further added
Women lead the way in war on plastic
In its bid to counter the plastic waste menace, the Peddapalli district administration has started a unit to manufacture eco-friendly bags of various sizes, which cost just as much as the plastic bags, or even less. The unit is being run by women from SHGs. The officials have formed a mechanism to collect data from village sarpanches on the number of bags needed and accordingly manufacture the required number in the unit. These eco-friendly bags are also being given to workers who collect dry waste from households, said Devasena. She said that the administration has also entered into an agreement with a local entrepreneur for disposal of plastic waste through recycling