This Telangana village achieved Swachh objectives 15 years ago
PM praised Gangadevipalli for its progressive schemes in his Mann ki Baat
A life-size statue of Mahatma Gandhi and a 15-ft long ‘stupa’ painted red with hammer and sickle at the top symbolise the spirit of Gangadevipalli, a village in Warangal district of Telangana.
Once dominated by Maoists, Gangadevipalli was like any other disturbed village in the state. Even now, almost the entire village is influenced by the CPI(M) ideology. However, it attracted the attention of PM Narendra Modi who made a proud mention of it in his radio programme Mann ki Baat in the first week of March.
Reason: a couple of weeks before the programme, senior IAS officer Parameshwaran Iyer — who heads the Swachh Bharat Mission — accompanied by 40-odd IAS officers from across the country visited the village only to learn that the Communistdominated village had achieved the objectives of the mission almost 15 years ago by implementing the twin-pit technology for toilets. To display how effectively the villagers were following the technology, he himself got down into a toilet pit and removed the dried-up faecal matter. In the twin pit technology, each toilet consists of two holes that are dug up and cemented. Once the first pit is full, the villagers use the second pit. The first pit is closed and the faecal matter in it gets decomposed, dries up and turns into manure. After six months, the first pit is emptied and can be used again by the time the second pit is filled.
Not just this, Gangadevipalli village on Narsampet Road, which is about 20 km from Warangal town, is a real smart village in all other aspects.
The village, which has 360 households with a total population of 1400, has many achievements to boast about, as indicated by a board at the village gram panchayat office: 100 % prohibition, 100% house tax collection, 100% literacy, 100% school-going children, 100 % construction of toilets, 100% in small savings etc.
Right from the village entrance, all the lanes and by-lanes have cement-concrete roads with well-laid sewerage lines on either side. All the streetlights are solar-powered with photo-voltaic systems. There are closed circuit cameras at strategic locations, which are monitored from the gram panchayat office round-the-clock. “We have Any Time Water machine, which dispenses 20 litres of drinking water for just ₹1. If anybody wants more, they have to pay an extra ₹4 for another 20 litres. The machine dispenses water with the swiping of a smart card,” Pendli Malla Reddy, president of water committee , told HT.