The Curtain Raiser program of Swachhathon 1.0 took place in the city today which was organized by Mission Directorate Swachh Bharat Gramin (Assam). The event which was held at Assam Administrative Staff College, Khanapara was organized with the objective to crowd source ideas for some of the pressing problems related to Sanitation and Hygiene in Assam.
The event started with the lamp lighting ceremony by Mr. V B Pyarelal, Additional Chief Secretary, PHED in presence of Mr. Siddharth Singh, Mission Director, SBM(G). Along with them, Sri V.K. Pipersenia, IAS, Chief Secretary, PHED also graced the occasion with his presence.
The state-level event received 98 participations from all over the state that were selected after the Swachhathon 1.0 contest happened at the district level. Participants presented innovative, novel and viable solutions on various topics such as Monitoring Usage of Toilets, Triggering Behaviour Change, Toilet Technologies in Difficult Terrains, Working Solutions for Maintenance and Operations of School Toilets, Technological Solutions for Safe Disposal of Menstrual Waste and Solution for Early Decomposition of Fecal Matter. All the participants were presented a participation certificate by Mr. Pipersenia and Mr. Pyarelal.
In his welcome address, Mr. Siddharth Singh mentioned, “Swacchathon 1.0 is an initiative to bring different innovative ideas in order to make Assam an ODF state within this year. I am glad to announce that our target was to provide sanitation facilities to 8.5 lakhs families, but we have already exceeded our target by providing all the facilities to 10.4 lakhs families. Interestingly, we are heading towards the post ODF stage, that's called ODF+. We are happy that Nalbari and Kamrup Metro have been declared as ODF districts and very soon we expect Chirang and Sivsagar to be added among the same list.”
Additional Chief Secretary, Mr. V B Pyarelal added, “This is a great initiative by Mission Directorate (SBM-G). I hope this initiative will be able to give a sustainable solution to make Assam ODF by the estimated time frame. For achieving our goals, it is not sufficient to construct the toilets only; we also need to create awareness on its use and maintenance actively.”
On the occasion, Sri V.K. Pipersenia launched the trailer of a movie called ‘Ajanite Mone Mone’ based on Swacchta produced by Swachh Bharat Mission and directed by Upakul Bardoloi. This movie is scheduled to be released on Gandhi Jayanti, October 2. On concluding the event, he said, “I think we still have a long way to go. Just by building toilets and talking about it won’t make us reach our goals. We need to focus on combating behavioral and psychological aspects as well.”
The Government of Assam is conducting Swachhathon 1.0, a Swachha Bharat Hackathon as a part of Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) to supplement Government of India’s vision to make India Open Defecation Free by 2019. The implementation of this programme is monitored by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Government of India at the National level and done by the Public Health Engineering Department, Assam in the State.