In yet another remarkable accomplishment, achieved during the ongoing ‘Swachhata Hi Seva’ Campaign, the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir has declared all its 6650 villages across 285 blocks in 20 Districts as ODF Plus Model. The achievement of ODF Plus Model for all villages in the UT is a significant milestone as it goes beyond constructing and use of toilets towards cleanliness by managing Grey water and Solid Waste in each village. For a village to achieve the status of ODF plus Model, it is required to pass through three stages of ODF Plus namely Aspiring, Rising and Model. When a village achieves a condition where it is visually clean with minimal litter and stagnant water, apart from solid and liquid waste management (SLWM) and adequate cleanliness awareness generation activities, it is declared as ODF plus Model.
In its attempt to make all villages ODF Plus Model, comprehensive plans were made, bringing all the stakeholders on board before execution. The Village Sanitation Saturation Plans (VSSP) for each village were made to ensure it has assets available for SLWM. Based on the plans, considerable SLWM infrastructure has been created under SBMG and MGNREGA. For Grey water management i.e., water generated from kitchen, bathing etc. soak pits, magic and leach pits have been developed at household and community level. 4,83,404 individual soak pits and 24,088 community soak pits have been constructed in J&K. Wherever kitchen gardens are available people have been motivated to dispose grey water through the kitchen gardens. For Biodegradable waste management individual and community compost pits have been constructed. 1,77,442 individual compost pits and 12621 community compost pits have been constructed either by the government or by people themselves in their households under MGNREGA. More and more of these assets are being constructed thereby making people accept and adopt of self-disposal of their organic waste, whether solid or liquid. People are being encouraged to segregate dry and wet waste and process wet waste in compost pits. 6509 waste collection and segregation sheds have been constructed for proper disposal of waste. 5523 number of Community Sanitary Complexes and 17,46,619 Individual Household toilets have also been constructed in J&K, since it embarked on the journey of ODF and ODF plus.
GOBARdhan which is Galvanising Organic Bio Agro Resources is a waste to wealth initiative where animal dung and kitchen waste is used to generate biogas/bio slurry. While two such projects are already functional in J&K, 18 more projects are in the final stages of completion. Door to Door collection of waste has been initiated in all the panchayats. Through involvement of locals, youth clubs, NGOs, and expert agencies, waste is being collected from households to be taken to segregation sheds where waste is segregated into various categories such as paper, wood, plastic etc. for its disposal. Some of these segregations shed are semi mechanized with bailers, shredders etc. User charges are being collected from the households, commercial and institutional establishments, both government and private. A financial model has been put in place for all the districts based on their waste collection agency, to ensure sustainability of the waste collection mechanism and also generate revenue for panchayats out of the waste disposal, thereby converting this waste to wealth.
To cater to plastic waste in villages, Plastic Waste Management Units (PWMU) are being established in each block, which are at different stages of completion. The plastic in these centers would be cleaned, shredded, bailed etc. for its final disposal. The complete life cycle of the waste is properly managed.
For declaring a village as ODF plus besides the uploading of ground reporting with clear visual, videos of Gram Sabhas being conducted and declaring their villages as ODF Plus are all required to be uploaded on the portal, thereby making the entire process very transparent and public. The work done on the ground was captured and updated on the IMIS portal of SBM- G by the Blocks and Districts which facilitated in declaring J&K ODF Plus Model which is a remarkable accomplishment.
To enhance Capacity Building of officers, village level workers, elected representatives about Swachhata, Capacity Building programs across 285 blocks in 20 districts have been conducted at the panchayat level in which entire Rural Development Deoartment’s team and swachhagrahis have been trained to further train the people professionally for sustaining the goals of the mission.
Trainers have been trained to dispense information and provide orientations at the panchayat level. SBM(G) is not just a scheme for asset creation but is a behavioural change program which each household of the UT has to embrace for its success.