BHUBANESWAR:In its drive to give community management of Pipe Water Supply (PWS) projects a push, the State Government on Tuesday directed the Rural Development Department not to take up new projects where community is not ready to take up their operation, repair and maintenance.
This was decided at the governing body meeting of State Water and Sanitation Mission held under chairmanship of Chief Secretary Gokul Chandra Pati in the State Secretariat here. The department was asked to ensure that the existing PWS projects are handed over to the respective village communities by March 2016.
Appreciating the performance of NGOs and agencies like Unicef, DFID and Gram Vikash in water and sanitation campaign, Pati advised to take up capacity building activities for local NGOs and community level organisations.
The department has been advised to involve more self help groups (SHGs) as coordinators in rural sanitation campaign. The meeting decided that all IAY beneficiaries would be linked with Swachh Bharat Mission for construction of toilets and no IAY house will be treated complete without a toilet.
The department was asked to launch campaign for persuading the APL households to give up the subsidy involved in construction of toilets which is really meant for BPL families.
Chief Secretary has also directed the department to involve CLTS (Community Led Total Sanitation) campaign volunteers in mobilisation of other developmental programmes.
Principal Secretary, Rural Development PK Mohapatra said updating of base line survey data for construction of toilets is on and July 15 is the last date for updating. All the district Collectors have been asked to personally certify the survey figures.
As per the survey figure, around 80 lakh households in rural areas do not have latrine. Apart from this, around five lakh toilets need renovation.
A target was set to construct around 12 lakh household latrines and 181 community toilets and 102 solid and liquid waste management plants under the programme during 2015-16.
It was decided to construct prefabricated toilets in the schools and anganwadi centres where there is land constraint, official sources said after the meeting.
Chief Secretary asked the Panchayati Raj Department to take up construction of community toilets through Gram Panchayat funds.
As of now, 379 villages in different districts have been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF), Mohapatra said and added that at least one block in each district will be declared as ODF by October 2015.