Challapalli village shows the way

Amaravati: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship programme Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has brought revolutionary changes in a remote village of Krishna district, which has now become a role model for entire country.

Highlights:

• 520 individual toilets constructed
• Village completed 1000 days of Swachh initiative on August 7

Challapalli village panchayat has launched the cleanliness drive under Swachh Challapalli, in 2014, October, immediately after the announcement of the programme by Prime Minister, and successfully completed 1,000 days on August 7, where the village has achieved 100 per cent sanitation and cleanliness, with the support of the villagers.

Challapalli village, which is also a mandal headquarters located in Machilipatnam revenue division of Krishna district, has more than 5,000 houses, where nearly 600 didn’t own a toilet before the Swachh Challapalli initiative, launched by the village Sarpanch K Padmavathi with the support of Manakosam Manam Trust(MMT), founded by Dr D Rama Krishna Prasad and his wife Dr Padmavathi.

“Within two and half years, as many as 520 individual toilets were constructed in the village taking the help of Tata trust and MMT and another 120 toilets were constructed on the canal bunds for the people living on the occupied lands.

Besides the individual toilets, a large public toilet complex was also built for a population of 20,000 residents at the New NTR Park with two toilets each for men and women. Another public toilet complex was also completed recently, which will cater the needs of the villagers. The village was declared open defecation-free (ODF) on April 29, this year, marking 900th day of the initiative,” said Bollineni Prasad, panchayat secretary.

According to D Rama Krishna Prasad, the MMT has set up three goals viz cleanliness, greenery and beautification for making it as Swachha Challappalli. “We have been successful in maintaining cleanliness in the village while creating awareness among the people on the open defecation and dumping the litter on the streets.

We have planted more than 4,000 saplings in the streets and developed gardens along the roadside. Beautification of the roads and public places including dumping yard and grave yard has also initiated in a big way,” he said.

The village wakes up in the early morning at 4.30, where the MMT volunteers and panchayat members are seen busy making the village clean, where they dedicate about 2 hours every day while taking up activities like sweeping the roads, removing the litter from public areas, and clean the vegetable markets.

“The panchayat has employed waste pickers that go from door-to-door and collect the segregated waste and dump at dumping yard, situated outside the village. The work towards building a dumping yard for solid waste and a burial ground outside the village is in progress.

The dumping yard, where the dry and wet waste will be segregated will be covered with sheds, giving priority to greenery,” Prasad said. Concerning to reducing the plastic menace, the foundation is discouraging the use of plastic bags by telling people the hazardous effects of plastic disposal.

It has also started to sell cloth bags at cheap rates in the village. “We are addressing the sewage problem and recently MMT and some private organisations have constructed underground drainages in a few areas. The government has sanctioned Rs 2.2 crore for the closed drainage system in the village, which will be taken up very soon,” Prasad said.

By T Sudhakar