Swachh Bharat: Managing waste next big mission
Under Open Defecation Free (ODF) plus, several states have set themselves the ambitious goal of achieving total sanitation along with solid and liquid waste management
NEWDELHI: From open defecation free (ODF) to ‘open defecation plus’ (ODF plus) is the step forward for the Swachh Bharat Mission.
With around 80% villages and habitats in the country having achieved ODF status, according to the Swachh Bharat Mission website, several states have begun working on projects to upgrade them into ODF plus villages. ODF plus would mean achieving total sanitation in terms of solid and liquid waste management, better sewerage systems and clean drinking water, in addition to a sustained movement to help people grow their habitual cleanliness habit.
Four states – Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan — have started working on upgrading to ODF plus status their villages and small towns that were declared ODF in 2016 and 2017 and have maintained the status thereafter. Officials familiar with the matter said many more are expected to follow suit soon.
According to the drinking water and sanitation department, ODF plus status entails clean drinking water sources, drain management of anganwadis and schools, decentralised solid and liquid waste management, introducing the concept of reduce, recycle and reuse, and integration of various government schemes to achieve these targets. The basic idea is to provide facilities that would ensure minimum hygiene and, in turn, reduce the disease burden.
A community-based programme, ODF plus provides ODF villages and small towns the opportunity to generate compost fertilizer and bio-gas from waste, thereby creating an alternate revenue-generation avenue.
“The real work is to be done by the locals themselves under guidance from the village panchayat or municipal officers,” said an official associated with the Swachh Bharat Mission.
In Haryana, about 1,360 projects have been sanctioned for scientifically treating solid waste. Rajendra Mehta, coordinator for Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin), Haryana, said every village selected would have a shed to process household waste and two-three villagers would be tasked with handling and processing garbage.
In addition, the Haryana government will fund villages under the GOBAR Dhan (Galvanising Organic Bio Agro Resources Dhan) scheme to convert animal waste into compost or bio-gas.
With the state having 450 cow shelters and about 3.41 lakh cows, the scheme would help generate revenue, a state government official familiar with the matter said.
Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu, while launching the ODF plus scheme in several villages in August, set a tall target.
“My ultimate dream is to make Andhra Pradesh totally sanitised, healthy and liveable by deriving public health and environmental outcomes for all citizens,” he said.
Under the ODF plus programme, the Andhra Pradesh government is looking at ensuring a monthly income of ~ 10,000 for each rural household, supply of piped water in all 12,918 gram panchayats in the next three years, achieving zero tolerance to school dropouts and making wealth from waste.
The Andhra panchayat raj department has created a protocol for 10-star rating of villages on the ODF plus yardstick to achieve sustainable development. Bollempalli Gangaiah, chief executive officer of the Smart Andhra Pradesh Foundation, said most gram panchayats had achieved five to six star rating on a 10-star scale.
But CL Venkat Rao, executive vice-chairman of Swachh Andhra Corporation, pointed out that some panchayats in waterstarved Rayalaseema and Uttarandhra regions “had got poor ratings in the absence of uniform distribution of water”. Efforts are underway to ensure that all panchayats get a higher rating in the coming months, he added.
However, it is Himachal Pradesh’s Sundernagar town in Mandi district, about 100 km from Shimla, that a people movement’s has begun to win for it the tag of the country’s first ODF plus town.
Ashok Kumar, chief executive of the town municipal committee, said the process of geo-tagging community and public toilets had begun and work would soon start on waste water and solid waste management. “Along with farm councillors, we are going from door to door to raise awareness about the harms of defecating in the open, the importance of cleanliness and waste segregation,” he said, adding that rag-pickers trained in waste segregation had been engaged.
“Underground dustbins have been installed at 40 locations in the town and a disposal plant for biodegradable waste has been built,” he added.
In Rajasthan, a smart village scheme for rural habitats having a population of more than 3,000 has been started. State government officials said 5,000 sanitary complexes and solid and liquor waste management projects have been approved so far. “Money has been given for these projects and work will start soon,” said a Rajasthan government official. With the ODF plus programme promising to change the landscape of villages and smaller towns, many states are showing interest in it.
“We are receiving several proposals from state governments to move towards ODF plus,” a central government official said, claiming it shows the “huge” potential of the programme. (With inputs from Gali Nagaraja in Vijayawada, P Srinivasan in Jaipur and Naresh Thakur in Dharamshala)