The Unicef logo

Jorhat, Sept. 7: The Sivasagar district administration with Unicef as a partner has launched a project from September 1 to make Lakwa, a development block, open-defecation free by April 15 next year.

The proposed target will be the first not only in the state, but in the entire Northeast. The plan is part of the project to make 25 gaon panchayats in the district open-defecation free within a year.

Sivasagar deputy commissioner S.S. Meenakshi Sundaram told The Telegraph today that the district administration had chalked out a plan having a target of 25 gaon panchayats out of 118 in the district to make open- defecation free within one year.

Each gaon panchayat has a population of 8,000 to 10,000 people and the project is aimed to benefit over two lakh people. Sundaram said as part of the plan, the administration has set one development block Lakwa, having five GPs under it, to make it open-defecation free by April 15, 2015.

“We checked records and found that no development block in the northeastern region has become completely open-defecation free and we will make Lakwa to be first in the region as a challenge,” Sundaram said.

The deputy commissioner said Unicef is a partner for creating health awareness and imparting training and motivation to people to discard the habit of going out in the open to defecate as it is a health hazard.

He said according to information in the health sector, the habit of defecating in the open spreads fecal-oral contamination in the region by insects that feed on excreta before sitting on foods.

Sundaram said on the basis of the outcome of the first phase of the project, it would be expanded to other gaon panchayats phase-wise.

He said to bring an end to the habit of defecating in the open by providing low-cost sanitary latrines under the erstwhile Total Sanitation Campaign of the Centre — which later was renamed Nirmal Bharat with the state governments as partners — has been on, but for the first time a targeted approach has been undertaken in the district.

Sundaram said the Centre and states would share the major cost of installing a low-cost latrine as prescribed under the scheme with the beneficiaries to bear less than 10 per cent of the total cost.

He said the main challenge was not to make people agree to install the toilet, but to give away the habit of going into the open for defecating.

He said to make the behavioural change in the people, Unicef has been brought in as there have been reports across the country on people not using toilets even after installing latrines.

Sundaram said a three-day workshop was held at Nazira (a subdivision in Sivasagar district) from August 27 in which officials, presidents and secretaries of the gaon panchayats to be covered by the project, representatives from Unicef and NGOs participated.

He said well-known activist campaigning for making India open-defecation free Aloke Sinha of Feedback Foundation (Delhi) too participated in the workshop. Sinha has been working in the field across the country.

Tahseen Alam, regional advocacy and communications officer of Unicef in Guwahati, told this correspondent that the global agency, that is involved in various health-related issues in the state, will carry out awareness and motivation drives in the gaon panchayats selected for the project in Sivasagar district.

Alam confirmed that if Lakwa block achieves the target then it could become the first development block in the northeastern region to be open-defecation free.

“We will make people understand the need for changing their habits for their good and also for society as a whole,” Alam said.