Index to measure Swachh village

BHUBANESWAR: With the Centre celebrating December 20 as village swachhata divas as part of the Swachh Bharat Mission, the State Government has undertaken an exercise to measure cleanliness of villages across the State.

The Odisha State Water and Sanitation Mission (OSWSM), a State Government agency, has come out with cleanliness index, which takes into account the percentage of households having safe toilets, no litter and cesspool around homes and community areas.

A circular issued by the state agency to executive engineers of the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation (RWSS) divisions has requested them to capture the village cleanliness index in their respective areas of operation.

As per the circular, there will be two indexes. While “cleanliness index” will capture toilet coverage, “solid and liquid waste management index” will capture environmental  cleanliness, which includes absence of litter around houses and public places, absence of stagnant waste water around households and efforts made to implement solid and liquid waste management (SLWM).   

Measurement of cleanliness will be estimated by conducting gram sabhas (village meetings). “Gram sabhas are to be held to estimate various factors that go into the composition of cleanliness index and SLWM index. Representation of at least one member of the panchayati raj institutions (PRIs) is mandatory along with 20 other residents,” the circular said.

The minutes of the meeting will be documented and uploaded in the management information system (MIS) at gram panchayat/block/district level. The district authorities will be responsible for the data entry.
The executive engineers of all RWSS divisions have been asked to complete the process before December 20.