NEW DELHI, Aug 2:
As part of efforts to make the country open defecation-free by 2022, Centre is planning to avail services of Women Self Help Groups to create awareness among the masses about its health impact besides operating community toilet facilities.
“We are trying to make sanitation programme part of women’s self-help groups (SHGs). …Women SHGs taking on much more active role in creating awareness, taking on responsibility for maintaining and running some of the community facilities is something that we can stress,” Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said here.
Women SHGs under Rural Development Ministry’s ambitious programme called National Rural Livelihood Mission consist of 10-15 persons. At present, over 25 lakh Women SHGs are active in the villages across the country.
Addressing a conference on ‘child height and stunting; early-life disease, water quality and sanitation’ organized by Centre for Development Economics at Delhi School of Economics, the Minister said, “We cannot understand the malnutrition paradox in India without looking at the sanitation issues” and the services of rural health workers and Women SHGs are necessary to address the problem.
Recalling the steps taken by him to increase resource allocation for the sanitation sector during his tenure stint in the Sanitation Ministry, Ramesh said critical level of spending in the sector has invited attention of media, political parties and experts in plan panel.
“Sanitation is now part of political agenda, part of the public discourse, and it is no longer relegated to the background,” said Ramesh, who launched several programmes including Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA) last year to eradicate the practice of open defecation in the country.
The objective of NBA is to accelerate the sanitation coverage in the rural areas in the country accounts for almost 60 percent of open defecations in the world. (PTI)
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