Ranchi, June 2: Godda district is inviting girls and boys of its 1,600 villages to play kabaddi and football, but with a swachh catch.
Only those boys and girls with toilets at home can be a part of teams - girls for kabaddi and boys for football - and play at tournaments organised by the district administration.
It's a bait that may work well as it targets sports-loving youngsters of every family to harness their pester-power to demand toilets at homes.
And, Godda needs all the help it can get. When Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was launched in 2014, Godda's target was to build 261,000 toilets by October 2, 2019. Under the swachh scheme, the Centre and the state give a corpus of Rs 12,000 - the Centre pays 60 per cent of the sum - to every applicant to build a household toilet.
But, so far, only over 60,000 toilets have been built in Godda. To add to that, chief minister Raghubar Das has gone on record recently to say that the toilets would be ready in 2018, one year ahead of the 2019 deadline.
Godda DC Bhuvnesh Pratap Singh, who thought of this innovative idea to speed up public demand for toilets in villages, said this idea should "ride on the enthusiasm of youngsters".
"Through this campaign, at least 50,000 toilets would be built in no time," he said. "We are telling youngsters, you can play and shine but only if you have a toilet at home, which means you don't practise open defecation that spreads filth and disease. Ask your elders to approach officials for financial help to build toilets at home. Once you have a toilet, if you want to play, join or form a team. Those who win at the village level can play inter-panchayat matches, and then if they win, at block levels. Winning teams at panchayat matches will get Rs 5,000 cash reward while the two district-level winners in football and kabaddi finals will get Rs 5 lakh cash reward each," he said.
Singh currently is directing mukhiyas and gram pradhans to work out modalities to organise football and kabaddi tournaments for boys and girls in villages. Each football teams will have 16 players and kabaddi teams 12. Players would get football and jerseys for free.
But, will Godda district administration have money for both toilets and tournaments? The DC assured this correspondent that they would.
"As per rules, 3 per cent of the total sum (for this toilet drive) can be spent on publicity campaigns. Instead of going for advertisements in print and electronic media, we have decided to spend these amounts on football and kabaddi," the Godda DC said.
The DC explained that the Centre did not send funds directly to districts but to the state government, which releases money on submission of utilisation certificates.
"During the current fiscal our aim is to build 1 lakh toilets involving expenses to the tune of Rs 120 crore. About Rs 150 crore is available with our District Mineral Foundation Trust fund. MLAs concerned have approved spending Rs 100 crore from this fund on Swachh Bharat schemes in Godda villages belonging to Poreyahat, Godda, Basantrai, Boarijore and Sundarpahari blocks," he added.
Construction of toilets in villages belonging to rest of the four blocks - Godda has nine blocks, 201 panchayats and 1,600 villages - would be taken up once the state government receives utilisation certificates of work already done and starts releasing fresh funds, he added.
"For the past five days, BDOs, mukhiyas, panchayat sevaks and other officials are holding meetings daily to discuss strategies to speed up building toilets at homes," the DC said.
