Moga tops country in rural cleanliness

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, December 30

The rural area of Moga district has bagged the joint first rank at the national level in Swachhata Darpan Rural Ranking-2019 under the Swachh Bharat Mission, scoring 100 points out of 100 on three parameters of ODF (open defecation-free), IEC (information, education, communication and capacity building) and SLWM (solid and liquid waste management). Moga shared the first position with seven other districts in the country.

The survey this year was conducted in all 698 districts and 17,475 villages of 34 states and union territories. The field survey was held over 45 days at 87,000 public places, including panchayats, anganwadis, marketplaces, primary health centres, at 30 villages of every district across the country. The ranks were allotted based on feedback from people, observation results by independent assessors, etc.

With 99.83 score, the rural area of Mohali district got second rank at national level, followed by Fatehgarh Sahib (48th), Barnala (145), Tarn Taran (199) and Ludhiana (210). With 45.82 score out of total 100, Faridkot district’s rural area was placed 231st and Patiala at 238th national rank.

Poorest performer in the state was Pathankot, ending at 576th rank with 25.41 score. Muktsar district was slightly better at 547, Gurdaspur (529), Sangrur (518), Ferozepur (510), Amritsar (471), Bathinda (437) and Hoshiarpur (433) at the national level.

The rural dominating districts of Mansa and Fazilka stood at 399th and 418th rank, respectively. The performance was calculated on the basis of three parameters: ODF declaration (60% weightage), IEC and capacity building (20%) and SLWM (20%).

The score was weighed on the basis of community toilets at a village, negative marks for dysfunctional toilets, community pits, soak pits and informative and educative messaging about sanitation in the villages.

“We have worked hard to get 100% score on all three parameters. Besides making community toilets, community compost and soak pits in the rural area of the district, various programmes were organised to spread awareness on the use of toilets and maintain sanitation,” said Additional Deputy Commissioners Subash Chandra and Antia Darsi.

It’s not just a survey but an opportunity to encourage behavioural change and take sanitation to the secondary level, beyond the concept of open defecation-free villages, said Darsi.

Swachh Survekshan Grameen-2019 is a national survey that reviews the progress of the cleanliness drive in rural areas.