JAMMU: Chief Secretary, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta, today emphasised upon all the concerned to intensify their efforts to clean all the villages and ensure proper hygiene in all habitations.
The meeting was attended by the Commissioner Secretary, RDD, Deputy Commissioners, and Director, Rural Sanitation either physically or virtually.
Dr Mehta impressed upon the officers to follow a simplified model of waste collection from the doorsteps of households, creating the material handling facilities and then disposal of the same in a scientific manner.
He advised them to create segregation facilities for a cluster of nearby villages if not feasible for a single village. He told them to sensitize the people about the cleanliness of their surroundings and also penalize those found littering around undesirably.
The Chief Secretary maintained that cleanliness is the foremost task we have and all have to be serious about it. He observed that the job is for everybody to perform beginning from the self to his/her surroundings. He made out that the task of cleanliness of our villages is not a difficult task to accomplish if we all do our bit.
He took appraisal from all the Deputy Commissioners about the status of Door to Door collection of waste in villages, construction of segregation sheds, provision of Composit/Soak pits, drainage facilities, and disposal of waste in their villages. He also enquired from them about the Plastic Waste Management plans for he remarked that such waste creates unhygienic conditions mostly in our surroundings.
The Commissioner Secretary RDD asked all the Deputy Commissioners to complete the tendering process forthwith. She told them to increase their numbers with respect to villages falling in the Aspiring, Rising, and Model category. She stressed on making every village ODF+ in the coming months for the same is within target after the given infrastructure is created in each Panchayat.
On the occasion the Director, Rural Sanitation gave a presentation on the current status of all the initiatives taken under Swachh Bharat Mission Grameen in the UT. He gave out that the door-to-door collection of waste is going on in every village. He further revealed that Solid Waste Management (SWM) plan has been formulated for every Panchayat besides bye-laws for advisory committees, enforcement, and monitoring.
The meeting was informed that the agency for the collection of Solid Waste has been identified in all the districts with an allied financial model for its sustainability. District Sanitation Committees has been constituted also. It was made out that around 1512 villages had achieved the ODF+ status already besides more than 7000 kgs of legacy waste disposed off in the UT villages with the participation of 197838 individuals.
Moreover, the meeting was apprised that around 6009 Community Composit Pits, 804 segregation sheds, 42424 Soak pits/Leach pits, 15607 drainage facilities, 1102 Grey Water Management (GWM) systems have been created in villages in addition to 455616 individual household assets for SWM and GWM under the Swachh Bharat Mission Grameen throughout the length and breadth of J&K.
