GOLAGHAT: The chief minister of Assam visited the Khumati region of Assam on Friday to declare the results of the Cleanliness Competition organised by the villages of the region. This project was undertaken by Mrinal Saikia.
The Dadhora Village of Brahmaputra ZPC, Jugibari of Kothalguri ZPC, Melamora of Khumtai ZPC and No 2 Borting Nausolia of Dakhinhengera ZPC were named as the winners among the villages while the Natun Mati TE won in the tea gardens category.
The MLA of the Khumtai Legislative Assembly Constituency, Mrinal Saikia has announced a cleanliness competition last month. Starting on February 17 this year, this competition covered a total of 121 villages and tea gardens in the region. These villages and tea gardens falling under Khumtai Constituency under Mrinal Saikia had a month's time to make their locality worthy of the prizes.
The winning village was supposed to get a one-km concrete road. The runner-up will get a development plan for their village worth Rs 10 lakh. The third, fourth and fifth prizes are worth Rs 8 lakh, Rs 5 lakh and Rs 3 lakh respectively. But the Chief Minister decided to double all the prizes during his announcement of the winners. He also announced that the state government will be organising a similar contest across all the constituencies of the state in a bid to promote cleanliness.
“Two of the villages in Khumtai — Jugibari and Melamora — have had tourists coming in since parks have been developed around lakes there. But I want to make all of Khumtai a destination for rural tourism. But since we don’t have hills or a river here, I want cleanliness to be our capital,” MLA Mrinal Saika had mentioned while talking about this project.
The localities were judged by a total of 15 experts based on various parameters. The panel included Padma Shri Jagav Payeng, commonly called the forest man of India. Several naturalists, administrative officials, and media personalities took part in the process of judging this cleanliness competition.
Naturalist Soumaradeep Dutta, senior journalists Nandan Pratim Sharma Bardoloi, Mrinal Talukdar, Pranjit Shaikia, rural tourism expert Abhijit Gogoi, Film Director Dinesh Gogoi, former professor Dr Amarendra Nath Dutta and Golaghat Chief Executive Officer Dhiraj Das, Golaghat District Transport Officer Dwipjyoti Karji and five other administrative officers also took part.
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