Bhubaneswar: The civic body's revised plans for city's sanitation will include inputs from residents of the state capital following a decision to ask for feedback from citizens.

The housing and urban development department has asked the civic body to conduct a door-to-door campaign and get to the root of sanitation-related problems in the city and incorporate those in its sanitation plan to resolve the issues.

The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation will ask citizens to air suggestions, feedbacks and grievances on cleanliness for their own future benefit. Citizens can provide inputs on lack of waste bins, irregular sweeping or cleaning activities, non-lifting of garbage, overflowing drains and the need of public, community or individual toilets. Officials will compile the data and draft a sanitation plan.

Earlier, the civic body's draft sanitation plan put focus on safe disposal of faecal sludge that was seen a major reason for the outbreak of water-borne diseases here. The civic body has since ensured that faecal sludge is not released into open drains.

"According to the government's latest strategy, the sanitation plans need to be periodically revised. We discovered that faecal sludge needed to be treated properly since we were focussed on it earlier, but now there is a need to revise the plan according to requirements," said a civic official.

Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena said they had received the government direction and would conduct the door-to-door campaign to get citizens' inputs on the new sanitation plan.

"We will form separate teams that will roam the wards to get suggestions from the public. In this way, we will be able to get to the root of the problems," said Jena.

Sources in the housing and urban development department said other urban local bodies in the state would follow a similar procedure to make a sanitation plan.

"Each city has its own problems. One plan will not work for different urban local bodies and, as a result, we decided to have separate plans for separate cities," said the department official.

Gopabandhu Nagar resident Dibyansh Ojha said there was a need to involve local residents in the urban planning system. "We are the ones who face problems and we can suggest solutions to the problems. It is a welcome move to take our opinions to resolve those problems," said Ojha.