A day long workshop on Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) was organized today as a part of outreach initiative to discuss various issues and challenges in the scheme besides hosting a collective brainstorming on possible solutions with various stakeholders.District Development Commissioner Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, ADDC A S Chib, DPO Zahir Kaifi, DSWO Dr Abdul Khabir, CEO Lal Hussain, CMO Suresh Gupta, BDO Manjakote Abid Hussain, CDPOs Khalil Ahmad and Shaarda Kumari apart from President PCR Avinash Jasyal, Vice-president Arif Qureshi and others members of the club attended the workshop.Speaking on the occasion, the DDC said the work on construction of Individual Household Latrines has been taken up on mission mode in the district with more than 45000 IHHL units coming up in past one month, thereby resulting in steep increase in coverage of households from meager 27% to 80% in terms of physical achievements.He said Administration is acting on a multi dimensional strategy roping in all government departments to ensure cent percent households are provided with toilet facilities and recently 1665 Anganwari Centres are provided with IHHL units.Dr Shahid said the role of media is indispensable to make SBM sustainable, to change the mindset of public and make it a mass movement for its successful implementation. He added the media has always remained at forefront in making public outreach successful through positive behavioral change leading to stakeholdership and greater partnership of public.
He called upon the members of print and electronic media to provide platform for feedback from public and support for grievance redressal by highlighting the issues and bottlenecks, apart from an assessment of such schemes on ground which will go a long way in strengthening the delivery mechanism.A host of issues were discussed which included mechanism adopted for coverage of left-out families, making water available, steps taken for coverage of schools and hospitals, steps to be taken for proper waste disposal and effective grievance redressal. The difficulties faced by field staff were also discussed in the workshop.Members from print and electronic media presented a host of suggestions for greater public participation in making sanitation a way of life and also instilling the sense of stakeholdership among the organizers of public functions. They suggested for carrying out a series of activities for involvement of public in this initiative.Subject matter specialists and field officers made presentation on a number of issues and field experiences. Discussion was held on various bottlenecks faced at ground level and mechanisms to be adopted for improved performance.Pertinently more than 67000 IHHL units have been constructed in the district this year against 13000 in previous 3 years while the work is under progress on more than 20,000 IHHL units which the field teams plan to complete by end of this month.The DDC asked the officers to avoid haste in declaring the areas Open Defecation Free merely on 100% completion of physical target, rather work on behavioural change, assured usage, involvement of families already having units who have not been covered under SBM. It was decided that third party assessment shall be mandatory. The district is pegged to achieve 100% SBM target in next fortnight.