A placard says it all at St Anne’s Girls’ High School in Ranchi on Thursday. Picture by Prashant Mitra

Student: Humlog kahan jaye teacherji (Teacher, where can we relieve ourselves)?

Principal: Hum jaldi hi sauchalaya banwayenge (We will soon have toilets in our school)

The nukkad natak presented by members of Eco Club at St Anne’s Girls’ High School, Ranchi, marked the launch of the Union government’s Swachh Vidyalaya Abhiyan under its Swachh Bharat campaign in Jharkhand on Thursday.

Under the nationwide school hygiene and sanitation drive, toilet facilities will be made available in every rural cradle and attempts will be made to bring about behavioural change in students, especially girls. They will be encouraged to take up cleaning of classrooms, laboratories, libraries, playgrounds, toilets and drinking water areas. Essay writing and painting competitions, besides debates, will be organised to teach the importance of tidiness.

On Thursday at government-aided St Anne’s, 2,000 schoolgirls took the personal hygiene pledge and also promised to keep their campus and its surrounding areas clean.

Addressing the gathering of students, teachers and government officials at Thursday’s launch, state HRD secretary Aradhana Patnaik appealed for a clean environment. “Every day, along with their regular studies, students will ensure a clean environment around them. This school (St Anne’s) may have proper lavatory facilities, but in most government schools, the dropout rate among girls is high because there are no toilets. In Jharkhand, 3,500 cradles do not have proper toilets,” she said.

Patnaik added that 400 toilets, whose construction had already begun, would be completed soon. She later released balloons to mark the launch of Swachh Vidyalaya Abhiyan. This was followed by a speech in Hindi by Class IX student Kriti Keshri and in English by eleventh grader Nikita Kirti, who threw light on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream to make the country a hygiene model for others by 2019. Another Class XI student, Rubee Lohra, played the bin mascot to generate awareness against littering.

The campaign simultaneously began in select schools in other districts of the state like East Singhbhum, Koderma, Palamau and Deoghar. Students will involve themselves in different activities like quiz, painting, slogan writing and debate on swachhata evam safai (hygiene and cleanliness) while members of Bal Sansad will be responsible for generating awareness.

On October 2, the Narendra Modi government at the Centre will launch its Swachh Bharat movement across the nation where only 30 per cent rural households have toilets. The month-long campaign is expected to end on October 31. However, in Jharkhand, Durga Puja holidays and other festivals may offer the drive, which will be run by the state HRD, drinking water and sanitation and panchayati raj departments, an extension by default.

Though the campaign is primarily for government-run or -aided schools, CBSE-affiliated cradles will embrace the guidelines from October 2. Films, plays and competitions will be held for a month. Besides, the CBSE has directed its schools to upload their cleanliness status at www.schoolsanitation.com. The best will be felicitated.

District superintendent of education Jayant Mishra said the campaign was not being imposed on any school. “It is not mandatory, but we are encouraging participation. Some CBSE schools have evinced interest,” he said.

While DPS principal Ram Singh said they would decide on the campaign after Puja vacation, his counterpart at DAV-Kapildev M.K. Sinha has hopped on the hygiene bandwagon. “We will select students from every class for speech during assembly. We have clean toilets, but students will keep their classrooms, laboratories and libraries clean,” Sinha said.