Kolkata: The state government will soon start work on becoming a 100 per cent ODF (Open Defecation Free) Plus model with over 87 per cent of the villages having already achieved the status.
The Panchayats and Rural Development (P&RD) department which is presently implementing ODF Plus, under Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) Gramin (G), had attained the status of 100 per cent ODF on October 2, 2019 following which it started work for ODF plus. “There are 40600 villages in Bengal, out of which 35500 have already attained ODF Plus. We are working hard to make all villages gain the ODF Plus status. Once we achieve it, we will be pushing for ODF model status,” said MoS, P& RD department, Becharam Manna on the sidelines of an administrative review meeting on different activities of SBM (G) at Uluberia in Howrah.
When a village becomes visually clean with minimal litter and stagnant water, apart from solid and liquid waste management (SLWM) and adequate cleanliness awareness generation activities, it is declared as ODF plus model. In Howrah district, over 60 per cent of the villages have become ODF plus.
The ongoing activities under SBM (G) are related to management of solid, liquid and plastic wastes, apart from menstrual hygiene management, faecal sludge and septage management. The solid waste generated at households, markets, offices, etc. is being managed at a central processing unit (centralised model) or at the area level by composting biodegradable waste and selling the segregated recyclable waste to aggregators.
Among various parameters of the ODF model, there should not be a single family without toilets, zero plastic littering in villages, no stagnant water accumulation and mandatory community latrine in populated areas of that village etc.
Public Health Engineering and Public Works Department minister Pulak Roy, district magistrate Howrah, P Deepap Priya among others were present at the workshop.