HILLONG: With 768 villages qualifying for Nirmal Gram Puraskars pending final Government of India verification which will pave the way for most of them to win the coveted award for total sanitation and open defecation free status, Meghalaya is all set to emerge as the top most performer in the country under the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (Total Sanitation Scheme) of Government of India for the year 2012-13.
This came out during the Meghalaya State presentation made in the three day International Conference on Rural Sanitation from February 5-7, in Jaipur.
In the three day brainstorming and knowledge sharing forum organized by Water and Sanitation Program of the World Bank, many countries like Thailand , Indonesia , Bangladesh , Uganda , Tanzania and states like Bihar , Jharkhand , Rajasthan , Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka participated on the discussion on “What works at scale ? Distilling the critical success factors for scaling up rural sanitation”.
The Meghalaya success story was presented by the Deputy Commissioner, West Garo Hills Pravin Bakshi with the topic “Total sanitation through behavior change in Meghalaya” along with the State NBA Coordinator and Additional Chief Engineer PHE Department R K Pandey which focused on the spectacular success achieved by the state in collaboration with the Water and Sanitation Program of the World Bank which has actively partnered with the state for achieving total sanitation on a mission mode with a community led total sanitation mode.
In the last edition of the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (earlier Total Sanitation Campaign) West Garo Hills with 216 awards had secured the highest number of NGPs in the country with East Garo Hills finishing at the fifteenth rank at the national level hustings.
This edition of the NGPs is also to be dominated by the state of Meghalaya wherein 768 villages have been cleared out of 1231 after inter district verifications which is again the highest in the country. In the current edition of the coveted award, West Khasi Hills is all set to be one of the highest in India with 265 villages lined up for NGP closely followed by West Garo Hills and East Garo Hills .
The final figures shall be declared after the final verification by the Government of India teams who shall visit for a sample verification, adding there are a total of 2,40,871 household toilets already constructed taking the coverage percentage to 71% from near nil figures till 2006-07 .
A success story of insurgency affected East Garo Hill experience with the title “Delivering sanitation under the shadow of the gun” of NBA has been brought out in the compilation of Water & Sanitation Program of the World Bank in its compilation of success stories across the country.
The three day workshop focused on issues of convergence of NBA and MGNREGA, Solid Liquid Waste Management, Innovations in Waste Management, IEC and awareness campaigns and illustrative presentation were made by the District Collectors, State NBA Coordinators and government functionaries of Thailand, Indonesia, Uganda and Tanzania who shared their international experiences in sanitation.
Important presentations were also made by senior officials from the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Government of India and top functionaries of the World Bank