Total sanitation a distant dream in Mizoram village

A CORRESPONDENT

Lawngtlai (Mizoram), April 29: The target of achieving the status of 100% clean and healthy India is still a distant dream in many regions of the country, including Lawngtlai of Mizoram. A larger section of the people in the remote interior villages of the Mizoram district is still uware about the Total Sanitation Campaign.

The Swacch Bharat Abhiyan (SBA) is an unheard word among the rural populace of Lawngtlai district the word have been a new one.

According to a Baseline Survey of Minority Concerntration Districts of India Sponsored by Ministry of Minority Affairs and Indian Council of Social Science Research, majority of the households (nearly 87.70 percent of people) in the district are using open spaces in the villages as toilets, which is totally unhygienic. Just 12.30 percent of the households have in-house toilet facilities. The people in the district are still not aware regarding the ill effects of open defecation.

 The survey also reflected that the draige system within the village is also very unsatisfactory. Majority of the wastes coming from various sources like small factories, houses, shops etc are found lying in open spaces near residential premises. Moreover the small drains which are present within the village are also overflowing and blocked as all kinds of solid waste are dumped there. This has resulted in heavy flooding of the drains during the rainy seasons, leading to outbreak of diseases.

This unhygienic lifestyle has ultimately resulted in emergence of many serious health problems like malaria, typhoid, fever, jaundice etc along with many other vector-borne diseases as the people also witness the ill effect of impure and contamited water.

Thus the practice of open toilet needs to be checked by providing assistance for in-house toilets by the government. This would help to improve sanitary and environmental conditions in the villages.  

In order to bridge the gap and bring out more transparency and accountability in the implementation process of the scheme, ACTED under the aegis of European Union (EU) along with active implementation of NEICORD, NTF and PAC is actively working in the project of “improving access to information and delivery of public scheme in the seven backward districts of North East India, including Lawngtlai in Mizoram, said Thonghomang Haokip, the Program Director from NEICORD.

 There is special emphasis on the Lawngtlai district, which is one of the most backward district of the region and hence it has been picked up by the ACTED project. A number of workshops, awareness campaign etc are being organized in the remote isolated villages of this district for dissemiting correct and updated information to every household of this backward districts relating to ten government schemes, including TSC (SBA), said Haokip.