[Assam] Nirmal Gram Puraskar

[Dilip/Dil Deka]

Does anyone here know what set this village apart from the others? I view this as important; cleanliness of India has to start at the individual village and city block level. The model used in this village needs to be replicated throughout Assam.
   
  The news item made reference to a department of drinking water supply. Is drinking water the only criterion? I'd expect a checklist of dozens of items.
   
  I have fond memory of clean villages near Nalbari from the 1950s and 60s where tube wells supplied drinking water, each home had its own compost center and there was a community center called Namghar. Where has it all gone? Is the community spirit lost?
  Dilip
   
   
   
Guwahati, Friday, March 3, 2006  
---------------------------------
    Goalpara gaon panchayat wins national award
By A Staff Reporter
 GUWAHATI, March 2 – The Dariduri Gaon Panchayat in Goalpara district of the State has been selected for the Nirmal Gram Puraskar for the year 2005. This is the first Gaon Panchayat (GP) from the State to bag this prestigious award. President of India Dr APJ Abdul Kalam will give way the award to the GP at a function to be held at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi on March 23.

>From all over the country, 549 GPs have qualified for the award, while the Union Government’s Department of Drinking Water Supply has also selected three Panchayat Samitis (PSs) and four voluntary organisations for the award this time.

This was informed by Lalitha Kumar, Joint Secretary of the Department of Drinking Water Supply through a letter to State’s Public Engineering Department Secretary M Dutta. The Union Joint Secretary stated that the Dariduri GP would receive a cash amount of Rs 4 lakh for its achievement in the cleanliness drive under the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) of the Government of India. 

Union Rural Development Minister Raghubangsh Prasad Singh said in a letter to the presidents of the GPs and PSs on August 24 last that the total development of the villages of the country would not be possible till every household of the villages did not own a toilet.

He also articulated the criteria for the clean village award in the same latter.

   
   
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.assamnet.org/pipermail/assam-assamnet.org/attachments/20060303/8db116ec/attachment.htm>