The 2nd meeting of the State Level Apex Committee (SLAC) on Swachh Bharat Mission was held here today under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary, B R Sharma. Financial Commissioner, Planning Development & Monitoring Department, B B Vyas, Commissioner Secretary, Housing & Urban Development, Hirdesh Kumar, Secretary Rural Development, Khurshid Ahmad Shah, Commissioner, SMC, Bashir Ahmad Khan, Director Urban Local Bodies, Jammu, Soujanya Kumar, Director, ULB Kashmir, Tufail Matoo, Commissioner, JMC, Manmohan Singh and other senior officers were present in the meeting.
The Committee reviewed the progress of Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) and agency wise achievements registered till date. The Mission targets for the period 2015-19, includes construction of 94091 Individual Household Toilets, 2078 seats in Community/Public Toilets and construction of Solid Waste Management Plants in 80 Towns. The allocation (centre share) for various components of the Mission is to the tune of Rs 151.63 Crore.
The Plan of Action for the year 2016-17 includes construction of 37,700 Individual Household Latrines (IHHL), 482 Community/Public toilets and Solid Waste Management Plants in 6 clusters of Ananatnag, Kulgam, Handwara, Katra, Rajouri and Udhamapur covering 25 towns.Till date over 400 IHHT have been constructed while as work on over 5000 IHHT has already commenced. Similarly, 34 Community/Public Sanitary Complexes with 170 seats have been completed and work is under progress in 15 more Janta Toilets. Underscoring the importance of informing and educating the public about bad effects of not having proper sanitary facility in their households, Chief Secretary urged the implementing agencies viz SMC, JMC and all District Urban Level Bodies (DULBs) to intensify ward wise cleanliness drives, organise road shows, seminars/workshops in schools and colleges, so that the main objective of Swachh Bharat Mission is realized and J&K becomes open defecation free and clean.The Prime Minister had launched the Swachh Bharat Mission on 2nd October, 2014. The Mission is coordinated through Union Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (UMDWS) with two Sub-Missions, the Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) and the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban).