Tamil Nadu - Erode   

Panchayats brave odds to win Nirmal Gram Puraskar

Special honour: Thalavady and Digganare panchayats in Thalavady hills have been selected for this year’s Nirmal Gram Puraskar award for implementing the total sanitation programme.

ERODE: When M.J. Veerabhadra Swamy and S. Shantha Mallappa receive the Nirmal Gram Puraskar award from President Pratibha Patil, it will be special in more ways than one. The two represent the Thalavady and Digganare panchayats in Thalavady hills, bordering Karnataka. Not only that the two are not as easily accessible as the other parts of the district and have seen very little development.

But in providing toilets to houses under the Total Sanitation Programme, the presidents have ensured that the two local bodies stand on a par with any other.

Take for example the remote Digganare panchayat. It has 2,100 houses spread across a vast portion of the hills. Almost all the panchayat residents are poor farmers, whose livelihood depends on rain-fed lands.

Panchayat president Mr. Mallappa says with the Government subsidy of Rs. 1,200 a toilet and help from NGOs MYRADA and Bannari Amman Rural Foundation (BRF) he has managed to provide toilets to almost all the houses.

MYRADA gave us toilets as well as money. And, BRF gave us men and materials to construct the toilets, he says.

But then that was not easy. “Convincing the villagers to construct toilets was difficult. First, they were used to defecating in the open, and, second, had the mindset that construction of toilet would dirty or pollute the house.”

To change the mindset Mr. Mallappa had to adopt several strategies and conduct programmes. “We first began with school students, who were educated about the benefits of using toilet and asked to carry the message to parents. Simultaneously, we used students from houses with toilets to pressure those who did not, so that those students in turn urged their parents to construct one.”

The president adds that he also had to take the help of the District Rural Development Agency, which screened documentaries and films on the ill effects of open defecation.

His Thalavady colleague Mr. Veerabhadra Swamy says the other reason for hesitation among the villagers was lack of money. “Even though the Government provides Rs. 1,200 as subsidy, the construction is still a difficult task, as the beneficiary is forced to shell out a like sum,” he points out and adds that it here that the two NGOs helped.

Project Officer, MYRADA, P. Alagesan says through community managed resource centres they provided soft loans for beneficiaries in that they were allowed to repay the amount by remitting Rs. 100 or Rs. 50 a month.

In allotting the loan, supervising the construction of toilets, beneficiaries using them and collecting the loan, the NGO employed women SHGs. Similarly, BRF collected Rs. 300 from each of the beneficiaries and contributed Rs. 1,200 to take the total amount to Rs. 3,000 a toilet. With the money they provided men and materials for toilet construction, says BRF treasurer A.N. Kulandaiswamy.

While MYRADA has provided money for construction of about 300 toilets, BRF has supported construction of an equal number. The combined efforts of all have ensured that the hills are clean.

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