57 pc houses in M’laya covered under sanitation campaign
SHILLONG: It was a rare and pleasant occasion for several families residing at Mawphlang when Union Minister of State for Drinking Water and Sanitation Ram Kripal Yadav visited their homes, interacted with the family members and even sought information from them on the problems they faced with regards to sanitation and other basic amenities.
The Minister acted a commoner and even tasted the Kwai (betel leaf and nut) offered by a family while promising to visit the village again to taste the local delicacies.
During the interaction with the villagers, one woman lamented that the village neither had proper roads, nor a functional health centre or even a college.
The Union MoS spent nearly an hour with the villagers making it a day to remember for them.
Yadav was duly impressed by Meghalaya’s achievements with regards of coverage of households under the sanitation programme and remarked that the coverage in Meghalaya was better than Assam.
56.94 per cent of the households in Meghalaya have been covered under the sanitation programme in continuing with Prime Minister’s vision of a sanitized nation by 2019.
Informing this, the Union Minister said that as per the 2011 Census 227487 households out of a total of 422197 in Meghalaya are covered under the programme.
Yadav informed that the Union Government was committed to provide toilet in each and every household in the country. The Centre is providing as much as Rs.7 lakh to villages having population of more than 150 and there is a provision for Rs.12,000 to each household to built toilets.
The Minister, however, cautioned that the Centre would keep a strict check on utilization of the money to curb corrupt practices.
Elaborating further, he said that officers from the Ministry would inspect the projects from time to time, besides which, technical experts would be assigned to evaluate whether the money was being spent in the right way.
He also informed that the Ministry has a grievance cell where people can complain about any irregular practice.
To a query on the problem of water scarcity in Shillong, the Minister informed that 135 litres of water is being provided to each resident of Shillong which is more than the standard limit.