VILLAGERS RETURN AID FOR TOILETS
Locals say it’s worth spending on something related to their ‘honour’
LUCKNOW: At a time when even the urban rich do not want to give up government subsidies, many poor villagers are showing courage to construct individual toilets with their own resources, refusing to accept the government financial assistance for the ‘cause’.
While examples are now trickling in from several other districts also, the way was apparently shown by Bijnor, where around two dozen village panchayats recently returned the money they had received for the construction of individual latrines under the Swachh Bharat Mission.
Instead, the village pradhans took the initiative to pool in resources to build the toilets. In many other cases, the beneficiaries did it on their own.
“Around two dozen village panchayats in Bijnor returned an amount of ₹4.42 crore that had been transferred to their accounts for building 3696 individual toilets,” chief development officer, Bijnor, Indramani Tripathi told the HT.
Bijnor, over 150 km from Delhi, is among the state’s around half a dozen districts that have been declared open defecation free (ODF).
The story began with the Mubarkpur Kalan village under the Haldaur development block. Kishwar Jhan, village Pradhan, took the initiative to return the cheque of ₹17.56 lakh to the government’s district sanitation committee and decided to build the remaining 178 toilets without the government assistance.
“We constructed more than 50 toilets through a trust that we run, while in other cases the beneficiaries bore the cost or the community helped them if they were too poor,” Shakeel Khan, Kishwar Jhan’s brother-in-law, told HT.
“Toilets have something to do with our honour and hence we decided not to depend on the government’s assistance to build latrines that we have named ‘Izzat Ghar’,” he said adding, “Government is welcome to spend on roads, water, education etc.”
Significantly, Prime Minister, Narendra Modi had lauded the naming of toilets as ‘izzat ghar’ by the residents of Mubarakpur Kalan after which the Yogi Adityanath government decided to inscribe the same on latrines being built under the Gramin Swachh Bharat Mission.
But this is not the only village of its kind in the district. In fact, Shahalipur Asha, Telipara, Ajpura Rani, Shekhpura, Islampur Lalu, Kajiwala, Barkala, Buggara, Jatpura, Saraya Jivan, Mubarkpur Kala, Chakmahmood Sani, Fulsanda Gangdas, Sabalpur Bitra, Jatpura Bonda,
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Around two dozen village panchayats in Bijnor returned an amount of ₹4.42 crore that had been transferred to their accounts for building 3696 individual toilets INDRAMANI TRIPATHI, CDO Bijnor
Mehmoodnasho, Alipur alias Jogipura, Azampur Zamnibhan are among two dozen villages that have their own story.
Lalita Chauhan, village pradhan of Badgar panchayat, returned ₹28.32 lakh to the government deciding to construct 236 toilets with community participation. “We built 52 toilets with our own money,” pradhan’s husband DP Singh claimed.
“We also ensured, wherever possible, that the beneficiaries too spend some money so that they have a sense of ownership. Now, not only are people using these toilets but have also constructed bathrooms,” he said.
All this, however, did not happen overnight. According to additional chief secretary, panchayati raj, Chanchal Kumar Tewari this was achieved through prolonged sessions of counseling.
“Our teams sat with villagers impressing upon them the importance of sanitation in their life and the financial loss they suffer in the form of expenditures they made on the treatment of diseases caused due to open defecation,” he explained.
According to rural sanitation mission director, Vijaykiran Anand, reports of villagers not taking the government assistance (₹12000 per beneficiary) for toilet construction and doing it on their own or through the community help are now coming in from all the districts.
“We hope to have 10 lakh individual household latrines built in the state during the current financial year in this manner only without the government spending a penny,” he said.