People in the State have recurrent complaints that some of the most useful schemes floated by the Centre for rural uplift are not properly and completely implemented by the State. In these columns we have talked about central schemes on education, rural roads, water supply, sanitation and the rest of them. People repeatedly ask why our State is always a victim of shortfall. The Government has not been taking the question seriously and the result is that our development pace has slowed down. A shortfall may be tolerable in some areas to a limited period of time but in other areas that can have detrimental impact on other aspects of life cannot be left to take natural course.
A foreign tourist happened to visit India for the first time. He took a pre-dawn train to travel to some rural areas. To his great surprise, he found that on both sides of the rail track people sat in row after row defecating in open. In utter delusion he uttered “This country is a vast latrine”. Not a joke in any case; he said what he understood. Now go through the report of the National Level Monitors appointed by the Union Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation on the progress of its prestigious Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan project in the State of Jammu and Kashmir. The Monitors are non-ministerial cadres who have been assigned the task of making on spot study and then report on the status of implementation of the scheme. The team comprises retired defence and civil servants with expertise in social work. It also includes academia that has specialized in rural developmental schemes and environmental preservation. The purpose of appointing the expert team is not only to submit a status report but also make constructive suggestions of improving the scheme and making it operational in given circumstances. Therefore impartiality of this team is assured.
The report submitted by them after visiting various districts and villages of all the three regions of the State is sickening and most depressing. It says that 50 per cent of people in the villages of Jammu and Kashmir have no private toilets and they defecate in open fields. Imagine the quantum of air and water and environment pollution where half of the population’s human excreta is spread out in open. What diseases polluted air and water can spread is horrendous to imagine. This is one of the causes of large scale fatalities among the children in our rural areas. In some villages community toilets have been provided but the survey shows that only 2 per cent of the local population uses these community toilets. The main reason is that these are not kept clean and there are no paid safai karamcharis to look after these community toilets. We would like to ask whether the much trumpeted Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan scheme has been successful or is defeated? Shockingly, the Monitoring team after visiting some of the villages that have been awarded Nirmal Gram Puruskar found that 30 per cent of such villagers practiced open air toilet.
A part of the scheme is to provide cost effective sanitary material to the rural population. Thus cost effective Sanitary Marts were opened for this purpose. But the monitoring team found that only four such Marts were operational and the rest of them were dysfunctional, which means even this part of the scheme could not be implemented fully. The condition of schools and Anganwadi institutions in respect of sanitation and pure drinking water is sordid. The criminal part is that these elementary educational institutions which are co-ed institutions are dismally bereft of proper toilets and sanitation. Report says that only 79 per cent of rural schools and only 39 per cent of Anganwadi institutions in rural areas were having toilets and clean drinking water.
Pertinent to reiterate that under Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan for the State, funds are provided by the centre and guidelines and other consultative support is also promised. Still the apathy of the authorities is of the extent that neither funds are utilized in full nor are the projects implemented and made functional. There appears total breakdown in the rural development area in our State. In such circumstances, the Union Ministries are left with no alternative but to warn the State administration that funds would not be released if the schemes are not implemented.
We strongly recommended again, as has been done in the past, that the State administrative authorities should take up the question why central schemes remain half implemented in the State despite funds and guidelines made available. A team of administrative bureaucrats should be constituted to examine this strange and inexplicable phenomenon that is arresting rapid development of the State. In such schemes of social works, it is understood that the important factor is of educating the masses of people. If the authorities come to the conclusion that mass education is necessary, for example in the case of stopping open air defecating, why not make mass education programme part of the scheme? We are lagging behind other states in many schemes and it is to our detriment. This has to be stopped.
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