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Total sanitation campaign being seen as 'token', says Ramesh
Friday February 17, 2012 07:37:27 PM,
IANS
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New Delhi:
Rural
Development Minister Jairam Ramesh Friday said the government's
Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) is being seen as a "token
sanitation campaign" and the quality of toilets under the scheme
needs to be improved to free rural areas from open defecation.
Speaking at the launch of Asia-Pacific Regional MDG Report 2011-12
here, Ramesh said women's self-help groups (SHGs) should give
priority to toilets rather than focusing their energies only on
income-generating activities.
"The fact is toilets are used as storage godowns. Part of it (the
problem) is pathetic money," Ramesh said.
The minister said he would also speak to film-maker Shyam Benegal
to make a movie on sanitation as he had done on milk cooperatives.
Ramesh noted Benegal's "Manthan" had helped popularise the concept
of milk cooperatives among women.
He said construction of quality toilets in rural areas needs
Rs.8,000 each while only Rs.3,000 is being provided under the
government norms.
The minister said money spent on the Total Sanitation Campaign is
a "pittance" and there is a need to elevate "fiscal importance" of
water and sanitation issues and look at them in an integrated way.
The TSC is being called "token sanitation campaign", he said.
The TSC is a comprehensive programme to ensure sanitation
facilities in rural areas with the main objective of eradicating
the practice of open defecation and ensuring a clean environment.
Projects under TSC, launched in 1999, have been sanctioned in 607
districts of the country, which has a total of 640 districts.
Ramesh said that certain cultural norms were associated with open
defecation, which need to be changed. "It requires efforts,
requires community champions (to change habits)," he said.
Sikkim was free of open defecation and Himachal Pradesh was on the
way to reach the status, he said.
The minister said if bank linkages are established for backing
social infrastructure, there will an improvement in rural
sanitation.
The Asia-Pacific Regional Millennium Development Goals report said
that the region has made big gains in reducing poverty and is
moving fast towards other development goals but still has high
levels of hunger as well as child and maternal mortality.
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